#this ended up including toph way more than i originally thought | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

seyaryminamoto · 1 year ago

Note

When you posted the first chapter of Gladiator how far ahead were you in terms of planning the path the story would take? Are there any great changes from the original outline?

Uuuuuh... X'D

For me, planning stories isn't a linear journey. I DO write linearly as best as I'm able, because if I don't, I'm going to fuck up the continuity of my stories. I really am not good at just writing the big moments first and stuffing the rest of the content in later. All the power to the people who can do that, but the few times I've tried, I fucked up so badly that I always end up having to rewrite the scene I wrote beforehand anyway! So, yeah, I build up on things and try to have all cards on the table by the time I write the big stuff.

But planning? Oh boy, planning is WAY messier than that.

Let me see if I can illustrate this properly:

The core idea for Gladiator was suggested to me by a reader over at FF.net back in February 2013. One day, a month later, I gave the idea a little more thought than I had when he first offered it and my brain went into overdrive when I concocted these specific concepts that, at the time, were the very core of the story:

Azula and Sokka as partners with thicker sexual tension than anything I'd written in my life until then, in a will-they-won't-they situation that, of course, results in "THEY DID". In this setting, the war didn't end on time, meaning that a lot of things changed, including that Azula's got a blank slate in a lot of regards, so both her and Sokka need to be developed from scratch. Initially, I wasn't sure of where exactly I'd take the relationship aside from knowing that they'd obviously get together, but the specific concept of what I'd do with their relationship only arrived sometime later (as in, when I realized I was too addicted to this story and had too much to do with it to "cut to the chase", unlike what certain people wanted me to do). Also, of course, major potential to make them an epic battle couple, something I'd never gotten the chance to write them as until then, so big plus there!

Their biggest rival throughout the story would be Toph, banking on a very different portrayal than the fandom usually likes in Sokka and Toph's dynamics: she would be the big enemy inside the league that he struggles the most with defeating because, let's be real, it feels like no one could have ever imagined that Sokka could ever beat Toph in a fair, one-on-one battle until I outright wrote it in the final arc of Part 2 X'D Hence, I figured that giving him that HUGE initial goal to pursue (defeating Toph) would give us a solid story thread to follow for a long time.

Iroh as Toph's sponsor because of The Chase and their canon bond, with Toph basically being Iroh's biggest fan in the Gaang due to their bonding scene in that episode. I would then be expanding on a bond that, back in the day, was a fandom favorite and that, these days, seems to have gone completely under the radar because it feels like nobody even TALKS about it anymore. It's kinda taken for granted, I'd say?

Combustion Man as THE TOP DOG of the Ranking. The final hurdle both Sokka and Toph need to outdo to become the best gladiators in the league. Why are they trying to do that? In Toph's case, she loves fighting, this story basically gave her a chance to go wild in that sense and measure herself against all kinds of enemies. In Sokka's case? As proposed by that reader's initial pitch, he'd be forcefully taken from the Fire Nation and would want to go home: his deal with Azula solidified then as the reason why he wants to be #1. Once he wins and beats Combustion Man, Azula will consider their contract fulfilled and she will let him go back to the Water Tribe.

Zhao as Combustion Man's sponsor because I needed someone relevant to do it, it didn't feel right to just make an OC for a role so important, back in the day, and in this setting, Zhao wouldn't have died/vanished in the NWT so he was available for my needs -- all of which then led me into building a backstory where Azula held some manner of resentment towards Zhao that pushed her further in her need to find a gladiator and become the best sponsor in the league.

These five story elements were the first things that came to mind. As I liked the idea of Azula and Sokka having an immensely conflictive relationship at first, where they couldn't trust each other 100% but they LIKED each other way more than they wanted to, I switched the "Sokka gets captured by randos" from the original pitch to "AZULA captures Sokka", and that resulted in a LOT of extra chaos than what was part of the story's original concept :'D I'd dare say the main positive element about this was that the story felt more dynamic in the second chapter (when they meet for the first time) than it would have if Sokka had been caught by any other Fire Nation military officer. It even puts forward the deepest layer of rivalry in the story too: the one person in the Fire Nation settlement who could have outdone Sokka is Azula. If he had faced anyone else. he might have had chances of success... but not when he faced her.

This, then, means that Azula HERSELF is a big goal and hurdle Sokka has to overcome. Partly, their relationship would've granted Sokka the means through which he could achieve that goal, but the point is that, from very early on, I realized that I wanted the story to chronicle the gradual journey of how Sokka went from... uh, a hundred to infinity X'D because no, he wasn't a zero, he just wasn't THAT good just yet. I wanted this journey to become a full exploration of Sokka's potential as a warrior until he was strong enough to go toe to toe with Azula and defeat her one day...!

... And once I realized that, one of the first core scenes of Gladiator came into shape. As in, the day Sokka finally defeated Azula.

Also known as chapter 96 :')

On the day Sokka beats her, EVERYTHING changes. This change is primarily fueled by the fact that he DOESN'T want to defeat her, at that point. He is so done with their frequent conflicts when the one thing he REALLY wants is... her. And Azula wants HIM. So when he impulsively kisses her instead of dealing a killer blow...! Yeah, uh... pfft. God, I had done so little plotting of their character arcs that I ACTUALLY thought, back then, that there'd be tension in terms of the readers thinking "omg, is he going to kill her?!" ... yeah, that was dead in the water so fast x'D I sincerely doubt ANYONE ever imagined that he'd do that when that scene came around, but you asked about how the plotting went in the initial stages of the story, pretty sure this specific hilarious tidbit illustrates that fairly well x'D anyway, Azula surrenders and the whole underlying theme of a war between them finally gets resolved in the best way it could! :'D

But... how would THAT particular fight sequence come about?

And that's where the lead-up to the scene started to take shape! Sokka has been trying to beat Toph, but he can't! She beats him when it FINALLY looks like he might win. When that happens, Sokka seems to be ready to give up on everything, and Azula lashes out at him because she won't let him quit on her just like that. BINGO!

... And that, dear asker, was the first genuine scene and arc plotting that I did for Gladiator.

After this? I thought Sokka would go on to fight Combustion Man after a final fight with Toph in which he finally beats her. This fight with Toph, back then, was bound to take place within maybe a few months of his last defeat at her hands, I thought, but with the power of getting laid, Sokka was totally going to kick ass this time and then go on to defeat the BIG DEAL, COMBUSTION MAN HIMSELF.

And then he'd kill him. Paying a bit of homage to canon :')

It slowly came together, however, that a fight against Combustion Man quite so soon after defeating Toph was probably not going to be... well, completely reasonable unless the situation REALLY called for it for... some reason. While I'm not entirely sure that I came up with this right away, it probably wasn't over a week after I started plotting the story that I figured that Iroh would vindictively tell Ozai about Azula and Sokka's relationship after witnessing what he shouldn't have witnessed when they celebrated their triumph over Toph a little more enthusiastically than would have been appropriate :'D Then, since Combustion Man would be serving, in a sense, as Ozai's executioner of bad gladiators for sponsors who need a lesson, he'd be the one tasked with killing Sokka only for Sokka to kill him right back (?)

At this point? There was no Xin Long. The idea of Sokka killing Combustion Man through a volatile bomb predates Xin Long! I boldly snuck in a reference to how Sokka would defeat Combustion Man as early as chapter 2 because I'm crazy and wanted to make it a useful callback in future chapters, unaware that "future chapters" meant ALMOST 250 CHAPTERS LATER! X'D Anyway, point is, I wanted Sokka to defeat Combustion Man through different means than in canon, seeing how in canon he had advantages he wouldn't have had in this story (this is a controlled environment, a one-on-one fight, there's no cover where Sokka can objectively hide, he wouldn't have the opportunity to just fuck up Combustion Man the exact same way, he's not going to fall to his death, for there's no abyss nearby...). So, I came up with the volatile bomb for that purpose, and that tells you that I spent around 7 years with the image of Combustion Man burning to his death living rent free in my head before finally writing it :'D

OKAY! So! What else did I come up with...?

I think Sokka and Azula's first kiss was relatively early plotting too. The idea of Sokka carelessly flirting with Suki in the ring came to mind, and Azula being Azula, she wasn't going to appreciate that at all, so she would have kissed him recklessly in a very inappropriate and territorial bid to stake a claim over him that she really shouldn't have... but Sokka would've thought it was hot and gone with it anyway (?)

Funny reveal time here: back in the day, I was determined to ensure that they wouldn't kiss again after that first kiss, not until they were ready to bang in chapter 96. Can you believe I thought I'd have the self-restraint to pull that off? x'D I laugh at my innocence in those regards to this day.

The second kiss I planned, probably MONTHS later, was actually the one on the way to the Slate. I wanted them to go out of control at one point and for them to be like "omg that was very inappropriate of us! How could we! But omg does that mean you like me tooooo?"

And isn't it HILARIOUS that my plotting was soooo naïve that I STILL didn't realize how far the early chapters would take them in their relationship? x'D

This, in a nutshell, is the exact reason why I CAN'T write out of order: if I'd written the Slate's trip situation as early as when I first thought about it? You can bet it would've made zero sense with all the character progression we saw through the rest of the story. And then I would have had to rewrite it anyway :')

Xin Long, I won't lie, was a bit of a whim on my part, no doubt motivated by my frustrations with canon and how Azula seemed to only get screwed over. So I said "she gets whatever the hell she wants in Gladiator because I hate the world" and once the idea of helping her find a dragon came to mind, I just rolled with it (?) It took me a while to actually integrate Xin Long with the Rough Rhinos arc, I wasn't sure about when I'd introduce him once the idea came to mind, but there was no better chance than to do so while Sokka and Azula were lost in the forest.

About other stuff, I liked the idea of Piandao training Sokka more extensively than in canon, but I didn't want him to be Sokka's host FOREVER because that meant less chances for Sokkla interactions. So... I had to get rid of him.

Believe it or not, I didn't sort out the in-world reasons to explain why I'd gotten rid of him until well around 3-4 years into plotting the story :')

Piandao's connection to Ursa felt natural after I really started thinking about it, but that took AGES to properly plot. Initially? I just needed him to go away. And in a sense, the excuse was that Iroh was on his way home, meaning, there was a Grand Lotus near the Fire Lord's court, way closer than Piandao ever was, so he didn't NEED to be there anymore.

... And that kind of led into Zuko.

While I was absolutely overtaken by the wild plotting involved in soooo many other aspects of the story, my good friend @jordanalane, no longer active on tumblr or the fandom, put up with my rambling about ALL THESE IDEAS and went "Yay! This story sounds fun! What's going on with Zuko here?"

Me, internally: "... Well shit I forgot about Zuko."

I won't say that she singlehandedly set up Zuko's journey in Gladiator, but saying that she gave me about 65% of the ideas for what I'd do with him would probably be fairly accurate, unless the percentage is larger than I thought. I actually toyed with the idea of setting up Zuko and Aang on a way bigger, political journey that we'd only occasionally glimpse while we focused on Sokka and Azula's partnership within the Fire Nation culture and all the gladiatorial chaos. Very early on, the plan seriously wasn't for Sokka to become... well, what he is now xD So I was genuinely going to leave all the heavy lifting of the war to Aang and Zuko because, ultimately, the Fire Nation has to be defeated and they're the ones who usually get up to that, right?

I think I've mentioned that, post Combustion Man's death, I had no idea wtf I was going to do. Like... I knew that was far away. I knew I'd have the time (or at least, I faithfully believed I would) to figure out what I'd do before we got to that point. I absolutely knew the story could not possibly end there.

So at this stage of plotting, I toyed with Blue Spirit Zuko joining the Gladiator League briefly as a destabilizer within the system (and then I started writing Zuko in the story and realized that... no. There was just no way this guy wanted anything to do with the Gladiator League as a fighter or even as a sponsor. Nope). Then, I thought he should go south (though I had no idea how I'd get him there!), where he'd find Aang eventually! There was a veeeery small window of time in which I considered keeping Aang at 12-years-old, which would've made Kataang waaaaay too unsettling since Katara would've been over 20, and I thought maybe Zuko and Katara could be a thing? But the idea never really solidified into anything I wanted to write between those two, it felt like an older Katara would've focused even more on protecting Aang (becoming the actual mother figure the fandom and even canon are obsessed with adultifying her into at 14) because she'd be too aware of how young and fragile he was...!

... But then? I thought it would've actually made sense for Aang to be more than just the little boy who saves the day and everyone protects:

Why not make him an opportunity for Katara to learn her Tribe's traditional and lost waterbending styles?

If I aged up Aang, and made it so he had been frozen in the South Pole, not out of sheer chance but out of him actually BEING IN THE AREA when the storm struck him? That could do the trick! If his journey as a waterbending master was already underway by the time he was frozen, then he'd have two elements down... and he could be Katara's teacher instead! While there were downsides to this decision, of course, it actually made a ton of sense to me mainly because I don't love the way it feels like Katara, in canon, never truly reclaimed the traditional southern style of waterbending. This, then, meant that Aang could provide her with a connection to her own people and their past, something he can't offer her in canon.

So! With that in mind? I aged up Aang and made him 19, and Kataang could be preserved and be developed this way. Part of it is also motivated by my genuine confusion, when I first watched the show, over the old Air Nomad leaders deciding that Aang, already declared an airbending master, "needed to master more advanced airbending techniques" right after revealing that he was the Avatar. I mean... if he's already a master, doesn't it make more sense to send him to the next element he's supposed to learn? Especially considering it's water? And considering that the storm clouds in the horizon were coming from the Fire Nation, so the more water to fight them, the better? :'D

So yep, that was another reason why I made the choices I made.

Lo and behold, slowly and surely, the core bones of Gladiator were starting to take shape: Azula and Sokka start as contentious allies, joining forces for a common goal and very different motivations, all of which would lead them into falling in love over time. Their biggest threats in the league are Toph and Combustion Man, but perhaps bigger still would be Iroh, who would rat them out to Ozai (I'm 100% serious when I say this specific element of the story has been part of Gladiator's DNA since the very start, the whole journey I threw Iroh into was basically "how do I get him to the point where he would be THAT pissed off as to do something like this with no regard as to the consequences of his own actions?"). Zuko, Katara and Aang would more or less stick to being involved in fighting the war, they wouldn't be all that connected to the Gladiator League or anything to do with that.

Worth noting that my friend started to come up with ideas for Zuko and Suki to get together and make sense as a couple in the story, and while at first it was just a casual thing that I figured would work alright, her ideas became... so much more poignant than I ever imagined they would be.

About one year, maybe a year-and-a-half, after I started plotting Gladiator, I actually figured out what my endgame would be.

At that point, I actually knew where we were going and I started to focus my attention on plotting how to get there. New concepts started to pop up, things that I absolutely hadn't thought about from the get-go: I DID have my alternate idea on what was going on with Ursa since ages ago (the swamp concept, as you'll likely have read already...), and after The Search thoroughly disappointed me, I chose to stick with that path without looking back. But while this was in the background, something I knew had happened but that I doubted I'd be able to work into the story productively, I realized it would actually be something I could explore IN the story once Part 3 stopped being a big nebulous blob of mystery for me. I decided that Sokka and Azula would be torn away from each other, that HE would be the one leading the war faction out of the South Pole and into the chaos of war, that Piandao's tile for Sokka, mainly done as homage to canon back when I wrote that, could actually represent something FAR GREATER if Sokka joined forces with the White Lotus to fight the Fire Nation and return to Azula...!

... And one of my most evil advisors of those years also very casually inceptioned into my head the very wicked idea of pregnant Azula in the middle of this mess :'D

I could go on and on, honestly! I have one funny thing to bring up, and it's that the scene from the Northern Air Temple arc, where Sokka tells Azula his true fears and feelings about his family, how he doesn't think he's worthy of going home and is genuinely apprehensive of returning because he thinks his dad will be disappointed in him? That... was repurposed from a very early idea I had for Sokka and Azula, once they were properly together, traveling to Whaletail Island, and spending a casual day/night in bed talking about a lot of things, which then led into Sokka talking about his family and what he actually felt about them, which Azula wasn't supposed to know about until then :'D That was, ironically, the origin point for the Whaletail Island arc. The scene that originated it just... never happened x'D

As you may be able to tell... the progress of their relationship, the evolution and development of the characters, caused a LOT of things to move forward way faster than I thought they would. Hence, Sokka wound up telling Azula about all those things WAAAY sooner than I originally envisioned. By then, Whaletail's scene was kind of broken down and spread into other situations and arcs instead! Again: this is why I can't write out of chronological order xD

One funny thing to look back on was my confident belief that Sokka and Azula would spend the bulk of Part 1 doing a mutual pining thing where neither one realized the other felt the exact same way about them... when I was in the middle of their best conversations in the Rough Rhinos' arc, the THIRD ARC of the entire story, I was like "yo... they're 100% aware of the fact that they're down bad for each other already. There's literally no mystery about how they feel, THEY OBVIOUSLY ALREADY KNOW." And that hilariously changed A LOT of how things developed later, because I sure as heck didn't plan for them to kiss in the Rough Rhinos arc at all (it kinda happened on a whimsical plotting session, a few days before writing it :'D). I did NOT plan for them to kiss at Ty Lee's backyard, either (oh, this one was basically them getting out of my control and doing whatever they wanted, same evil advisor I mentioned earlier told me to go with it while I cried to her about how I apparently just COULDN'T STOP THEM FROM MAKING OUT???)...

Ember Island's arc, so poignant and crucial and such a KEY element in their relationship, was probably plotted well after... six months since the original idea of Gladiator came to my head. I did not think about this one until A WHILE into writing the story already. I was probably almost done posting the Rough Rhinos by the time the full concept of that arc materialized in my head! The beloved Pairs Tournament arc? That was 100% a reader's suggestion, from an ask I got one day! x'D I told them that sounded like a fun concept, and then, once I pondered it some more and fleshed it out, it ended up becoming a highlight for me, it's gone on to become a fan favorite arc of the entire story, as well as The Arc where Toph finally became friends with Sokka and Azula properly!

So. Yep. Basically... I do not plot anything linearly. I can't. If I did, I wouldn't have a clue of where I'm going and I'd lose my steam so fast that I would just crumble under the weight of not seeing the point of what I'm doing. I think I can write without a huge endgame, to a fault, with less demanding stories... but Gladiator was ALWAYS so much bigger than anything my brain could wrap around back when I first started to plot this story, and it's no joke to say that it's really taken me ten years to not only write it, but actually plot the story as thoroughly as I can (hell, only a few months ago I got struck by lightning with A PLOT TWIST that I just wrote yesterday! A crazy development I absolutely HAD NOT thought about, and that I fell in love with completely when it came to mind!). The amount of threads and possibilities and ideas that I've been juggling for AGES is probably a little crazy, honestly.

But yeah, in short, it's wild to think that even though I absolutely planned several things YEARS before they came into fruition, ultimately, the final arc of Part 1 came together before the first one, in many senses. It came together before every arc, basically, and all the material in between was just a matter of building a huge, solid bridge to the point where Sokka and Azula would finally act on their feelings. The process through which I got there absolutely changed me in a thousand ways, my ideas and my plans often wound up switched up whenever a random, crazy idea came up, and I thought to myself "... and why not?" after a few moments of indulging it and being on the brink of discarding it.

As another fun tidbit of information? That's kind of what happened with something as vital to the story as Rei has been, throughout Part 3: she is a character I came up with, not really on the fly, but at relative random once I was planning on having Azula seek Zhao for help over Toph's predicament back in Part 2. I loved the idea of a teenage, dorky maid who had NOT expected to meet the Princess, but initially? She's nothing to make a fuss over because we've been seeing heaps of people who are starstruck by Azula by then. She only stands out for having the dorkiest reverence ever x'D and part of why she stands out too, instead of getting written off, initially, as Zhao's nameless, aimless home staff, is because I had thought about the potential of making her Zhao's illegitimate daughter at this point in time! But I DIDN'T go all in with it on her first appearance... because I wasn't sure. Because I didn't think I could juggle ANOTHER plot point and new character on top of everything I had to set up (at this point I was particularly preoccupied by figuring out how to establish Shaofeng and Renkai as important characters for my future purposes with both of them :'D). So I said "nah, you know what? She's just the cute and quirky maid. We like her. Zhao is decent to her. He doesn't need to be her father."

... About two weeks before going all in on the Hahn's Gambit arc, I was pondering Part 3. The idea of Rei being Zhao's illegitimate daughter returned to mind. My impulse was dismissing my own thoughts, frankly, along the lines of "I mean, wtf would she even do once Zhao becomes Crown Prince? She'd be abandoned in the estate anyway, like, what, she would inherit it or something?" and then... then it struck me. I realized that she could very well just come with him. As his maid. And then, she could become Azula's maid...

... What followed was about three days of plotting that suddenly brought LIFE to Azula's Part 3 early storyline and I suddenly could not BELIEVE I had ever let myself think I could let go of this character and make nothing of note with her x'D

The situation with Rei is, indeed, something that happened often throughout Gladiator. Some ideas I've clung to, some ideas I've dismissed, some ideas have terraformed the groundwork I'd already set up... and instead of panicking about it? I've done what I could to work with it. Hence, that the will-they-won't-they did NOT include the agony of "but would he/she return my feelings?!" wound up being a result of the build up, something I didn't plan all along but that worked perfectly for my purposes. The idea of making Sokka and Azula's relationship not be just some powerful high, the be-all-end-all of the story once it was crystallized and once they were together? That wasn't immediate, either... but it certainly came along as a result of my greed, I'd dare say x'D

When I realized how long this story was going to be, I told myself this fic was basically the landscape upon which I could very well turn all my Sokkla dreams come true. And it wasn't ONLY the Sokkla dreams related to their fluff, or smut, or angst... no, it was even the fact that, for ONCE, I could build a story where Sokka and Azula were NOT the B-story to Zuko and Aang's A-story, unlike how it might have felt in most any other story, hell, even in my long defunct plans for how to conclude the story (and thank God that I dismissed that mess, honestly). Suddenly, I realized I could bring the ENTIRE Avatarverse together, reconfigure every character, repurpose as many of them as I cared to... and create a scenario where the story, every single major beat of it, was connected to THEM. Where the battle against Ozai was no longer some distant conflict with unexplored emotional stakes, it's a PERSONAL one, not only for Azula but for Sokka as well. And while I'm not going to pretend that I'm the only person who has ever rewritten ATLA to this extent without centering the story on Aang or Zuko, I can certainly say that I've never seen anything of this scale elsewhere (... which can be kinda literal too, considering this is, indeed, the longest fic in the fandom...).

But I REALLY didn't start out with that idea in mind. Back when the concept came to me... I really didn't know where I would be going, honestly. I knew this would be a HUGE commitment, but I didn't know how big, exactly. Now that I do know, that I have the full scope of the story in my grasp... I can tell you that yeah, I had no idea what I was getting into and I'm glad I jumped in anyway x'D

If anyone gets all the way through this long post and wants advice on how to cope with ridiculously long stories that are that difficult to plot? I think that my advice would definitely be to give it time, let it simmer, find the moments, the scenes you REALLY look forward to writing. Don't settle for powering towards the endgame without advancing the story beforehand: push things at other points of the story and if, when you reach your big story climax, you find that the leadup is different from what you were expecting you'd have in your hands, once you got there? ... Roll with the punches. Reconfigure the scene in your head. Improvise, to a fault, and build up FURTHER on what you already had... because the likelihood is that the outcome is going to be a thousand times better than your OG plans were. Don't let yourself get lost in enforcing a plot stubbornly: nothing makes a story come to life as vividly as surfing along with the new highs and changes that hit you at the spur of the moment, figuring out how to make your story the best it can be. I won't pretend Gladiator is anywhere close to perfect... but after just looking back on everything that has led us to where we are? I can definitely say I'm very proud of this story's journey, very proud of having jumped into this madness even when my vision of it, at the time when I started plotting, could have never informed me of every crazy thing I'd end up achieving with this story. While some important elements of the story 100% stayed true to my OG concept... I'm really glad that I let myself change certain aspects because it enriched everything I was doing well beyond the scope of what I could grasp back then.

Anyway. Sorry for the long rambling. I got a little hyped haha. Thanks for the ask!

#anon #gladiator #this is a LOT of words too #look this is break day #I finished arc 23 of part 3 #... I only have 10 left to write #*panics*#*hyperventilates*#*gets hyped*#so yeah I answered a few asks and I have a bunch more left #I am sorry to everyone I haven't answered yet #I'll try to get to it soon!#but honestly anon thank you for that chance to ramble about the past #that was a real fun trip down memory lane

8 notes · View notes

figurelifeflirt · 2 months ago

Text

Netflix avatar season 1 episode 6 Masks

I know that covid protocols make filming more arduous. But because this season is done in 8 episodes and I assume seasons 2 and 3 will also be done with eight episodes, this show feels so rushed.

I took a break from netflix avatar to do a rewatch of the original cartoon. I had done rewatch before when I was in college but it still helped to do one more recently.

I know in the last entry I said that I would be able to watch this show better if I didn't compare it to the original but now I see that is no longer possible. Because yes, this show is acceptable. But it's different from the original in so many ways.

The war council scene, I'm not too pissed off about, the main points were still there. And I actually like the alteration that the Agnai Kai is done closer. With Iroh only a few feet away, he was able to step in and try to speak for Zuko.

Zhao and Zuko's interactions on Zuko's ship. As I've said before, I love this actor choice for Zuko. When Zhao challenges Zuko's authority, I could see it in Zuko's eyes how confused he was.

This feels darker than the original cartoon. I guess netflix realized that not only children will watch this show. But I first watched the original cartoon when I was 15. And it took me a minute to realize that the year was stretched out over 3 seasons. I thought the characters all just aged a year after every season.

Now that I understand that only a year goes by in 3 seasons, our main characters have to grow up fast, including Zuko.

I do plan to watch season 2 and I'm excited for Toph. I will be disappointed though if they make her a sighted character. Toph isn't strong because she's a vision impaired earthbender that fights through her challenges. Tophi is strong because next to Aang she is the youngest of the group.

When Toph first sets off with Aang, she tries to be one of the guys. But it's clear that by the end of the show, she doesn't give a shit. She doesn't need to be like one of the guys because she's stronger than a lot of guys anyway.

So back to the first paragraph. I guess my question is why are seasons shorter now? Is it because filming is more expensive? Is it because people have to spend more time finding locations to film? Is it because actors/actresses have other projects to work on?

Or is in my opinion the very stupid reason that shorter seasons are easier to binge. I don't binge and I don't understand how people that do binge, retain anything.

#avatar netflix #avatar the last airbender #netflix original

0 notes

entityupdates · 4 months ago

Text

Fanfiction Masterlist Version 2

This is a master list of all the fanfiction I have posted with links and key details. I have another masterlist but I wanted to make one that was organized more clearly.

Sorted by fandom alphabetically. Multipart/series fics are grouped together. Crossovers are repeated. Updated as necessary.

Avatar: Last Airbender

Death Comes in Threes

Lu Ten, Azulon, and Ursa died within days of each other. It's a lot for a young Zuko to handle.

2023, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2K words, complete.

He Is Mild, He Is Meek

Modern AU written for aromantic writing month. Trans aro lesbian Suki adopts Momo the cat.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 6.5K words, complete.

Hypoxia

Hanahaki AU written as a gift. Ty Lee and Mai fall in love with each other in a Fire Nation where homosexuality is illegal. Ty Lee learns to use airbending to keep the flowers at bay.

2023, 2 chapters, 10K words, complete.

Momo & Zuko

Momo is interested in Zuko after he joins the gaang.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), >2K words, complete.

Moon Blinked

An attempt at horror. The moon is the bulb of an angler fish. Yue dies and is terrified of La.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3.5K words, completed.

The Spirits Threw Down Their Tears And Watered Heaven With Their Tears

This is a take on the weredragon Zuko trope with a heavy emphasis on the spirits in the world of Avatar. Dragon Zuko ends up in the North and meets sea serpent Yue. This fic was originally eight chapters but ten more were added to show Zuko and Yue moving on after Yue's death. The series page includes a supplemental oneshot about Toph.

2022-2023, 18 chapters, 58K words, complete.

The World Was Made By Gran Gran's Face

A series of drabbles about Sokka during the war. I also posted a draft of one of the chapters separately on FFN.

2020-2021, 10 chapters, >10K words, complete.

We Dance To Fast Music

Written for aromantic writing month 2021. Zuko experiences aro joy through dance. Can be read as platonic, queerplatonic, and/or polyamorous.

2021, 3 chapters, 8K words, completed.

When Everything Goes Wrong: ATLA Edition

During quarantine, I was very into incorrect quotes and also active on atla twitter so this is just a collection of some of my atla incorrect quote tweets.

2020-2022, 10 chapters, 8K words, completed.

Ben 10

A Change In The Beat Won't Make Me Stumble

Ken comes home from Thanksgiving. His family is a lot more alien than he thought it ever would be but he still loves them,

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.7K words, complete.

Crime Pays, Bro

Trans AU. Ben and Rook join Fistrick's gang.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 7.7K words, complete.

Dangerous Games

This is an October challenge I tried in 2019 but failed to complete. It does get updated but very rarely.

2019-Present, 31 chapters, in-progress/hiatus

Even the Stars Can Be Rewritten

Oneshot about Alien X recreating the universe.

2019, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.8K words, complete.

Glitch's Spark

Reboot fic. Glitch gets the spark instead of Gwen.

2022, 5 chapters, 17K words, complete.

It Should've Been Me

Reboot fic. Gwen and Ben have a talk after Kevin falls into the time portal.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.5K words, complete.

It Was Automatic

Carl adapts to the ways Ben has changed his life recently and punches Will Harangue in the face.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 6K words, complete

I Used To Dream, I Used to Fly

Ben 10/Kid Cosmic/Green Lantern crossover. Hal Jordan adopts Kid Cosmic and Ben gets a new brother.

2021, 5 chapters, 10K words, complete.

Rook Gets the Omnitrix AU

This is a series with five main parts and four supplementary oneshots. Rook finds the Omnitrix on Revonnah, attends the Plumber Academy, spends some time on Galvan Prime and Anur Transyl, and ends up in an interdimensional mess on Earth.

2021-2023, series, 182K words, complete.

To Touch Each and Every Life

The Adventure Zone/ Ben 10 Omniverse crossover. How the Day of Story and Song affected the Ben 10 universe.

2022, 5 chapters, 7.3K words, complete

Voiceless

Ben 10 Omniverse/Sanders Sides crossover. Roman and Remus are Osmosians (Omniverse definition: human mutants) with the power to see visions of something they don't yet understand. Logan, Virgil, Deceit, and Patton are aliens who attend the Plumber Academy with Rook and Scout.

2020-Present, (estimated) 30 chapters, in-progress/hiatus

When Everything Goes Wrong: Ben 10 Edition

Ben 10 incorrect quotes collection.

2022, 6 chapters, 3K words, complete.

You Were A Stranger

Rook, a Ben 10 fanfic writer, is assigned to Earth's Plumber base and falls in love with the actual Ben Tennyson. Featuring fanartist Scout, Rook & Molly Gunther friendship, and Kai being kind of terrible.

2022, 8 chapters, 35K words, complete.

Big Bang Theory & Young Sheldon

Synapses

Soulmate AU. Modern Sheldon tells his friends about his damaged (platonic) soulbonds with Paige and Dr. Sturgis.

2023, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2K words, complete.

DC Comics

Don't Look At Me

DC Legends of Tomorrow! Constantine loses his magic and the ability to pass as a man. He tries and fails to hide his transness from the crew.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 4.7K words, complete

House Rules

DC Legends of Tomorrow! The Legends make lists of house rules for each other to make sharing the Waverider a little more bearable.

2019, 10 chapters, 8.4K, complete

In Storm Or Calm

Justice League Unlimited! Vigilante and Shining Knight are outed after saving a pride parade from another attack by General Eiling. Oneshot and a cat sequel.

2021, 2 installments, 25K words, complete

I Used To Dream, I Used to Fly

Ben 10/Kid Cosmic/Green Lantern crossover. Hal Jordan adopts Kid Cosmic and Ben gets a new brother.

2021, 5 chapters, 10K words, complete.

Quick To Rise

CW Flash books! Johnny Quick origin story.

2018-2019, 5 chapters, 10K words, complete

Signal

DC League of Superpets/HouseBroken crossover! Krypto joins a meeting with the group.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.1K, complete

Tired of This Ghost Town

Justice League Unlimited! Vigilante fights back during the Thanagarian invasion and meets a ghost named Sir Justin. Intended to be a longer Vigilante/Shining Knight slowburn but I decided not to write it and felt the first chapter worked as a standalone.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 11K words, complete (may be continued)

Who Am I?

My Adventures With Superman! Clark realizes he's trans after Lois calls the hero she saw "Superman."

2023, 1 chapter (oneshot), >1K words, complete.

Dimension 20

5 Times Lisa Did Not Like G13 and 1 Time She Did

Never Stop Blowing Up! G13 comes to the real world. Lisa does not like him.

2024, 1 chapter (oneshot), 6.7K words, complete

Disenchantment

Mosiac

Written for aromantic writing month 2021. Bean reflects on the relationships in her life.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2K, complete

Eliza And Her Monsters

She Doesn't Swim, She Drowns

Written as a gift. Eliza ends up at the beginning of Monstrous Sea and discovers she has a deep, supernatural connection with the world. There is also a Spider-Man crossover sequel where Eliza realizes her powers from Monstrous Sea exist in the real world.

2021-2022, two installments (series), 17K words, complete

Kid Cosmic

I Used To Dream, I Used to Fly

Ben 10/Kid Cosmic/Green Lantern crossover. Hal Jordan adopts Kid Cosmic and Ben gets a new brother.

2021, 5 chapters, 10K words, complete.

Lion Guard

Siku Ya Wazazi

Simba and Bunga decide to work together to give Timon and Pumba a Parents Day to remember.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.5K words, complete

Marvel Comics

I Want You In My Life (But Not Like That)

MCU! Written as a gift and for aromantic writing month. Clint and Natasha look at their relationship over the years.

2023, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3.6K, complete.

Reunions

MCU/Endgame! Standalone reunions after everyone is snapped back.

2019-2020, 11 chapters, 11.2K words, complete

Sister Light And Brother Dark

Requested fic. Morgan finds a journal about her father's relationship with Steven Rogers and how they saw Ultron as their son.

2019, 1 chapter (oneshot), 7K words, complete.

They'll Have Someone to Care For Them

MCU/dsitmom! Earth 838 recovers from the death of the Illuminati.

2022, 23 chapters, 35K words, abandoned/complete/hiatus.

we felt his love and he died loving you

X-Men 97! Kid/Adoption AU. The X-Kids expect Scott to get custody of them after Xavier dies but they actually end up with Xavier's ex-husband who they didn't know about. Magneto struggles to be a dad.

2024-Present, 30+ chapters, 100K+ words, ongoing

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

(Drag) Kings And Queens

Identity shenanigans with a lot of queerness sprinkled in. Online designer Ladybug recognizes one of her commissions on drag king Chat Noir and they become friends, not knowing that they are dating in real life. They are also both trans and closed, thus living triple lives with each other.

2024, 6 chapters, 17.6K words, complete

Princes Are Always Just Out of Reach

Sanders Sides/Miraculous crossover! Roman's boyfriend Virgil is akumatized. Remus battles him alongside Ladybug as Chat Noir. Also, coming out and identity reveals.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 10K words, complete

Some Real Important Thing

Gabriel knows he's dying and decides to tell Adrien everything. Adrien does not take it well.

2024, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3.4K words, complete

Naruto

Dreaming Is a Universal Language

Gaara relearns how to sleep.

2019, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3K words, complete

Thought That Cupid Shot Me With Love But It Was Only An Aro

Soulmate AU written for aromantic writing month. Sai and Ino are soulmates but don't realize it, partially due to Sai's disinterest in being in a romantic relationship.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 10K words, complete.

Pokémon

Gender's a Spectacle

S&M! Kukui's class asks about Pokémon's gender.

2021-2022, 1 chapter (oneshot) 4K words, complete

Heels On the Limonium

Trans Nurse Joy drabble.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), <1K words, complete.

Island Visitors

Pokémon Anime/TMNT 2012 crossover. The turtles end up on Iron Island.

2018, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3.5K words, complete.

Immortality Is Hard On the Mind

Submas, B&W, PLA, Conquest, S&M, X&Y! Immortal Volo befriends the twins and Elesa in modern day but gets into some trouble when Ingo is sucked back in time.

2023, 15 chapters, 53K words, complete.

Masking and Related Stories

Submas, PLA, B&W! Hisuian Zoroark Ingo fic. Ingo masters his illusionary abilities and disguises himself as a human to return to his normal life. Main fic and spin-off are complete, may get additions later.

2023-2024, series, 150K words, complete.

Silence Was His Savior

Takes place immediately after the last chapter of the abandoned fic The Guardian's Dragons. Ash refuses to tell Oak what happened to his friend Bill.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), >3K words, complete

Sycamore

X&Y! Professor Sycamore's Pokemon Journey. I tried posting an incomplete fic to see if it would motivate me to write more but it did not and I never finished posting what I did have written so it may get updates eventually.

2017, hiatus

The Normal Amount of Pain Is None

Submas! Ingo deals with chronic pain after returning to Unova.

2024, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2K, complete.

Vines

OC fic/writing challenge. The beginning of Blake's Pokemon journey.

2018, 15 chapters, 32.8K words, complete

Puss In Boots

We Are Not Star-Crossed

Soulmate AU. Puss uses his wish to ensure everyone finds their loved ones like he has.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3.2K words, complete

Sanders Sides

Five Old Men Sitting On A Bench (Not Now, Not Ever. Ever Again)

Elderly DLMAP! Thomas is dying and Deceit wants to make amends with the other sides before its too late.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 12.4K words, complete

Like The Pictures On Our Socials, Faking What We Show

High school AU. Fake dating gay Roman/trans aroace Virgil to protect them both from getting outed.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 12.5K words, complete.

Manifestation

Orange side theory fic based on an Asides episode I now can't find the title for.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), >1K words, complete.

Nightmare Before Sunset

Sanders Sides/Warriors crossover. Many generations after the era of Firestar, the Four's prophecy comes back and a new group of cats gains the power to save the clans.

2019-2020, 20 chapters, 100K words, complete

Oblique

Written for aromantic writing month. An ace Roman and an aro Remus feel broken enough that they try to recombine into the king, distressing their partners and the other sides.

2021, 3 chapters, 11.4K words, complete

Princes Are Always Just Out of Reach

Sanders Sides/Miraculous crossover! Roman's boyfriend Virgil is akumatized. Remus battles him alongside Ladybug as Chat Noir. Also, coming out and identity reveals.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 10K, complete.

Snake In the Grass

Rikki Tikki Tavi AU! Snake Janus is betrayed by cat Virgil.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 7K words, complete.

Stolen From the Violet

Puff the Magic Dragon AU! Sorcerer Virgil is cursed into a dragon and falls in love with human prince Roman.

2020, 8 chapters, 22.4K words, complete.

Voiceless

2020-Present, (estimated) 30 chapters, in-progress/hiatus.

When Everything Goes Wrong: Sanders Sides Edition

Sanders Sides incorrect quotes.

2020-2022, 120 chapters, 75K words, complete

Why Don’t You Play Me One Of Your Songs?

Sanders Sides/BoJack Horsemen Valentines Day fic. Logan professes his love for Patton through song.

2021, 1 chapter (oneshot), 1.4K words, complete.

Words

Drabble series about Deceit, words, and feelings.

2020, 10 chapters, 8.2K words, complete.

Spirited

A Symptom of Our Relationship

Request. Roberto has some insecurities about his relationship with Clint.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 1.7K words, complete

Beautiful In A Moment

Clint recalls how he fell in love with Kimberly and Roberto.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.3K words, complete

Burn the Body that Isn't Mine

Trans AU! Clint reflects on his transness after dying.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 6K words, complete

Clint & Ghost Oneshots

Three related oneshots where Clint bonds with each of the ghosts.

2022, 3 oneshots, 2.4K words, complete

Do I Even Know My Own Name?

Request. Kimberly knows about Scrooge.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 900 words, complete

Grocery Run? More Like Grocery Pun

Request. Clint bothers Roberto while shopping with flirty grocery puns.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2K words, complete

Hematite Stones

Request. Clint wants to give a gift to Roberto but isn't sure how.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2K words, complete

Mix Up

Clint and Carrie don't understand the casting choice for GP Future and GP Past.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 2.2K words, complete

Then To Finish, We'll Snuggle

Clint shows Roberto Elf.

2022, 1 chapter (oneshot), 1.4K words, complete

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Four Corners of the Earth - Series

The turtles are separated as children and end up in very different parts of the world, forming new families there.

Original fic (complete), prequel oneshots (abandoned), sequel (abandoned)

2018, series, 140K, abandoned

Funeral Fight

Request. Chompy Picasso, Ice Cream Kitty, and Dr. Cluckingsworth MD get into some trouble at Splinter's funeral.

2018, 1 chapter (oneshot), 6K words, complete

Island Visitors

Pokémon Anime/TMNT 2012 crossover. The turtles end up on Iron Island.

2018, 1 chapter (oneshot), 3.5K words, complete.

The Adventure Zone

Guy Stuff

Angus has some trouble with his binder. Magnus, Taako, and Merle help him thanks to faded memories of Barry Bluejeans.

2022, 2 chapters, 4.6K words, complete.

To Touch Each and Every Life

The Adventure Zone/ Ben 10 Omniverse crossover. How the Day of Story and Song affected the Ben 10 universe.

2022, 5 chapters, 7.3K words, complete.

Warriors

Broken Nature

At birth, two of Yellowfang's kits died and went to StarClan. Or so she thought. Instead, Brokenkit grows up sharing a body with his two sisters' spirits.

2019, 20 chapters, 71K words, complete.

Chasing Stars

Jayfeather is reincarnated time and time again. He is tired of it.

2020, 1 chapter (oneshot), 5K words, complete

Falling Feathers

Jayfeather knows he's going to die. He tries to make amends with his father before its too late.

2019, 15 chapters, 30K words, complete.

Nightmare Before Sunset

Sanders Sides/Warriors crossover. Many generations after the era of Firestar, the Four's prophecy comes back and a new group of cats gains the power to save the clans.

2019-2020, 20 chapters, 100K words, complete

The Ancient Spirits / The Ancient Tribes

The three regain their lost powers and learn about catkind's history.

2018-2019, 80 chapters, 125K words, complete.

The New Horizon

The clans discover the three's powers and drive them out of the clan, forcing the three to find a new home and leaving the clans to face the Dark Forest alone. Some intention of continuation but has an ending. Crossposted onto Ao3.

2020-2021, 20 chapters, 60K words, complete.

#fanficiton #ao3 link #masterlist #masterpost

1 note · View note

balillee · 9 months ago

Text

more things

gran gran's veneers are really offputting

i do like the decision to make zuko's crew the 41st division. i don't think it's enough considering he didn't choose to take the 41st division with him (ozai forced him to take them), but it's just enough compassion for others that keeps me believing that zuko is still somewhat zuko. still can't forgive the change of him fighting ozai, however.

zuko doesn't go completely rogue and try kidnapping aang in the north

hated yue's wig. and zhao's

no inclusion of the northern air temple story SUCKS ASS. like the whole working of the mechanist into omashu was actually kind of smart if you ignore the fact that teo has no reason to learn to start flying if he has no relationship to air nomad culture, but you do lose the story about aang accepting that a group of earthbenders wanted to preserve and respect parts of his lost culture.

the scene at the end of the first episode where aang enters the avatar state after finding gyatso's body shouldn't have me cackling. you can't cut between gyatso looking like he's standing in front of god to a really awful cgi double of gordan cormier and expect me to not giggle

gran gran speaks fluent yapanese. i do not need her consistent expo dumps that are just word-for-word the intro to the cartoon. it's forced in and it's weird

don't expect me to care about momo nearly dying if you're not going to include him for more than three seconds at a time every other episode for the sole purpose of having thought of a momo-related joke

the earthbending looks lame. it should be quick, and strong. in the new show, exactly the same as the movie, earthbending feels a little too laboured all the time, and if by season 2 toph is pulling the same laboured movements, I AM GONE

in the same vein, waterbending just looks off to me. it's portrayed simultaneously as cutesy little splashes of water, but also like it should really hurt and has the power to push one or more people to the ground when it doesn't look like it could. this makes me scared for when/if (hopefully not if) they introduce hama later on.

mai doesn't sound nearly as bored as she should be

hakoda's a dick. sokka's most traumatic moment isn't his dad not believing in him, it's his dad placing the responsibility of wolf cove on the shoulders of a thirteen year old boy with no experience and then disappearing without a trace. hakoda may have understood that his son was just a kid with big ambitions and a big heart who wasn't ready for what he was about to be told, but he also believed his son could live up to that task and truly believed that sokka was capable of being a warrior.

bumi is kinda creepy to me in the new show. maybe it's just the armpit wigs that make me want to cry, but something about him gives off more 'creepy great-uncle' more than 'kooky, intelligent king'. also aang figured out that it was bumi far too early, and bumi's argument with aang was stupid. they're friends. bumi should not give aang the decision to either kill him or himself, it paints him more as a threat than as a, yet again, member of the order of the white lotus. let's hope they don't fuck up piandao the same way

ian oussley looks scarily like sokka

no inclusion of the reason why aang became a master airbender being because he created the airball technique. instead, apparently the other young air nomads were afraid of how naturally powerful he was, which was weird. maybe him being a young prodigy is meant to be a nod to him feeling like his bending could endanger others (JEONG JEONG EPISODE MENTION :O), but no. he was just a normal airbender kid.

the airbending and the firebending does look good. i think zuko's firebending is a little too slow, and it CRIMINALLY doesn't include his breakdancing, but it's otherwise really good. also ozai shouldn't be firebending so early on and so frequently. i think we see him firebend in the original in no more than like, five episodes. it's meant to be sparse because we're meant to be afraid of what the firelord is truly capable of.

at least they pronounced all the names correctly. no 'ong', no 'eeroh', no 'sohka'.

the casting for jet was kinda perfect. while i don't think they did the jet story right since it never included sokka distrusting him from the start, i think they captured the whole first intro to jet's character pretty well, the basic concept being 'dreamy looking guy that katara seems to trust a little too easily turns out to be a horrifically traumatised teenager who cares not for the collateral damage of his acts of terrorism'. jet's actor does that pretty well, and i did like the inclusion of the little straw he chews on, and hopefully when jet comes back and gets brainwashed in ba sing se he loses it (which was meant to be a tell that something was off with him).

the blue spirit was done well. the mask looked really good, and i think the whole episode was only lost on me because i know that zuko is the blue spirit because i'd watched the original show. had i not, it would have been the sickest shit, but then again when you copy the original so well, you can't fuck up. once again - THE GUIDELINE IS GOOD. FOLLOW THE GUIDELINE!!!!!!!!

had to turn back to tumblr after a year of not using it to hate on the new atla adaptation

a few things

speedrunning through half of the story with the fire nation family is not a good idea, actually. lu ten was introduced far too early, and with it you delve into iroh's backstory, motivations and true character before you've even fully developed the whole 'silly old spiritual man who prefers tea and hanging out with his nephew over hunting down an 11-year old air nomad'. the lu ten funeral scene was fine as an addition, but it's not something for book 1. learning about lu ten is something we do in book 2 as it compliments the developing relationship between iroh and zuko with the fire nation as a whole. also, iroh seems a lot less cool. the show commits the grievous literary sin of always telling rather than showing, and by continuously telling us 'he's the famed general iroh, dragon of the west' you're not actually accomplishing anything. let him redirect some lightning you fucking cowards.

azula also seemed to exist for no reason. any of the correspondences to azula from zhao could have bypassed her entirely and could have gone straight to ozai or even the fire sages. she exists in season 1 purely to rush through explaining zuko and iroh far too early. the show exists as a guideline. FOLLOW THE GUIDELINE. THE GUIDELINE IS GOOD. EVERYONE KNOWS THE GUIDELINE IS GOOD. also make her fire blue. cowards

aang does not waterbend for the entire season, which means the window of opportunity for him to learn to bend the other elements before the arrival of sozin's comet is even shorter than in the original show. even the original aang, who the netflix adaptation changed because he was 'too childish and always goofing off instead of getting to the point' understood his responsibilities to learn the elements better than this new live action version - part of the reason for the gang to get to the northern water tribe was to find aang a teacher (not just katara), master pakku, because katara was not capable of teaching him at her novice waterbending level but even so they were still seen practicing together on multiple occasions.

this brings me to my next point. WHERE THE FUCK IS JEONG JEONG. aang in the original series understood the urgency of defeating the firelord before sozin's comet after speaking to roku very early on, not as late as depicted in the adaptation. currently, the gang don't even know that they're on a time crunch, and yet still the show refuses to let them take their time by going on side adventures. this leads into the episode where aang meets jeong jeong and tries to learn to firebend before he's even started earthbending at all, because he's still scared that he only has a year to master the elements. he burns katara while trying, which is the reason she learned she had the power to heal with her waterbending, we see how fucking sick jeong jeong is at firebending for the first time during the fight with zhao, and aang swears off learning firebending at all, which is one of his main points of conflict leading all the way into book 3. if we skip that whole episode, we have skipped meeting one of the members of the order of the white lotus. the show could think it's slick by omitting him to just have iroh as the white lotus' firebender, but that's possibly one of the worst changes they've made. the deserter was not a filler episode.

i know a lot of people were talking about this before the show even came out, but sokka is not sokka. in book 1, sokka is three things - funny, overconfident and sexist. in the live adaptation, he is kind of one of those three things. part of why sokka's arc is one of my personal favourites from the original show is the stark change you see from the start to the end of his story - he believes himself a leader but has no real tactical or combative experience despite telling all the fighters and warriors he meets about how impressive he is. and then at the end of the show he is a definitively strong leader, shown by leading the assault on the fire nation armada - his team being two of the show's most competent female characters, who he trusts and respects with his life. by omitting these traits from sokka's character, you remove a big part of why he's even there in the first place - his arc's beginning allows him to become the fearless leader that lead his team to defeating the fire nation army.

i also hate that aang meets monk gyatso in the spirit world. a big part of aang's conflict about running away is that there exists nobody in the world who can tell him that what happened to the air nomads was not his fault, and that there was nothing aang could do to stop it if he was there. the new adaptation decides against the inclusion of one of aang's primary internal conflicts by changing the 'running away from his responsibilities as the avatar because he's a terrified child' to 'getting some air', and then throws in meeting the spirit of monk gyatso to tell him all of these things that aang needs to learn on his own. once again, telling rather than showing.

and finally, my least favourite change - the agni kai. part of the reason why i personally think the agni kai is so significant to zuko's story is the fact that zuko intentionally refuses to fight. in the adaptation, zuko fights back against his father, and his father scars him simply because zuko hesitates. in the original series, zuko bows to his father and pleads for mercy, and refuses to fight at all, and that is when it cuts away to iroh and azula's very differing reactions to the altercation, zuko screaming in the background. the setting also irritates me, because in the original, the agni kai was a public spectacle for hundreds to see in an ominous chamber, while in the new show it looked like just a regular old family gathering in the sun. zuko's adaptation scar i also hate because it doesn't even look like a scar. it looks like a birthmark, or at best, a black eye. if you hadn't seen the original, you would only know that it's a scar because the show tells you that it's a scar. zuko's scar in the animated series is a definite physical deformation of his face, his face looks red and raw, and his eye is smaller likely due to how the tissue healed, and as the show goes on you learn that the severity of his physical scars reflect the severity of his emotional ones. the original show does a brilliant job at showing how, just through the scar and the banishment alone, that despite zuko's beliefs, his father has betrayed him time and time again.

#atla #netflix atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar live action #atla live action

86 notes · View notes

mostly-mundane-atla · 3 years ago

Note

So I was thinking of Zuko as a clearly scarred leader+Toph as a Beifong/teacher of Avatar+Teo, which all led me to thinking of war recovery including changes so there are accommodations for people who use wheelchairs, etc. Then, I was thinking of a Braille system of some kind being created+implemented, which led me to thinking about how the different nations would do it. I was thinking FN would put up like metal 3Dish plaques + EN would just bend out part of walls into forms.

And then I was thinking about the NWT+SWT. Based on research I see that different Inuit groups tend to use different stone for sculpting, and I know some do totem poles, and I know walrus ivory is used. So I guess I was thinking the SWT+NWT would probably do things differently. (I was thinking they would not do ice because ... having to touch ice? Would not be a cool accommodation.)

So, I was wondering what your thoughts are on this. Also, Do the SWT+NWT actually draw any inspiration from specific Inuit cultures/people’s? Or are the WN aesthetics just a mashup of different Inuit cultures/or a nebulous reference?

My apologies if you ever discussed any of these things before+thank you for taking the time to read this. I would love to hear your thoughts/opinions.

To answer your other asks, a good umbrella term is Circumpolar peoples. This covers all your bases and you can specify region, such as "from Greenland to Sibera" which I hear a lot in regards to the Inuit, Inupiat, and Yup'ik peoples.

That said, Circumpolar peoples don't do totem poles. Nations from the Pacific Northwest and southeast Alaska do, but we don't. You may be thinking of dance masks which can get incredibly intricate, especially the Yup'ik ones, but serve an entirely different purpose.

And now to go onto the actually questions. How would a fantasy version of Inupiaq culture do braille? Well, I'm not sure it would be entirely necessary. Unlike most of the cultures that the series takes inspiration from, we didn't really have paper or a written language pre-contact. We did use lampblack (burned animal fat in our case) for ink, but that was used for art and tattooing, not for writing words. Due to this lack of paper, our art was more three dimensional. It was beautiful fur clothes and dance masks, and figures carved of driftwood, ivory, stone, and scrimshaw. Etchings in baleen or ivory. You start at one end of the piece and "read" the story through interpreting the carved illustrations to the other end. We didn't really use signs for trails because there wasn't really a point. You would go that way your whole life and rarely ever completely alone.

But I suppose if I were to apply braille-esque signs to the Water Tribe anyway, I think they'd be treated as art pieces. The words, carved in driftwood or bone, or even baleen if you're feeling fancy, would be the most important part, but I don't think they could resist adding other designs that could be felt. I'm sure other accomodations were already worked into the culture. I'd find it hard to believe if snowblindness and having to travel in weather conditions so bad you can't see past your own nose weren't common among Water Tribesmen.

As for if they take inspiration from irl peoples, they definitely do, but I'd say it's more an amalgamation of various circumpolar peoples than any one particular group. Though many are quick to point out the Inuit influence on the aesthetic, I think it's fair to say just as much was taken from the Yup'ik peoples, shown in the photo below

This Kuskokwim Yup'ik couple was photographed in 1879. Note that these hoodless parkas are longer and have slimmer silhouettes than those you typically find in traditional Inuit dress, like the ones we see in the show.

There are also discriptions of traditional caps made of the skin of a wolf's head worn by Saint Lawrence Islanders, which may have inspired the wolf helms.

In Legend of Korra and the comics it seems they were trying to put a little more effort into referencing the Inuit and Inupiat through naming. Unalaq (from "Ungalaaqłiit") and Noatak (from "Nuataaq") are both named after Inupiaq villages. Tonraq likely comes from the Inuit word "tornaq" (our word for the concept is "tunģaaq") which is a land mammal spirit summoned by a shaman. Senna likely comes from Sedna, the most popular name for an armless woman in the ocean from Inuit myth, whose bones from her missing hands and forarms became all the creatures in the sea. If you perked up at this and said "there's an armless woman in Legend of Korra too! She's also Water Tribe!" I'll let you come to your own conclusions on that.

Malina, from North and South, also gets her name from a woman of Inuit myth, who became the sun after running away from her brother (for gross and fucked up reasons) who, in turn, became the moon. Her brother Malik has a name that could mean a number of things depending on what Inupiaq word you think he's supposed to be named after, from tidal wave to lure to one birth shortly after another (the traditional lifestyle typically involved gaps of about five years between children so only one year between births was notable) to constantly following (which, knowing the Inuit myth about Malina and her brother, is a little unfortunate).

Even in the original series, you find some glimpses of the language in names. Arnook is likely from "nanuq" or polar bear, which was spelled nanook before the spirit movement in the 80s estabished a standardized written aspect of the language. Kuruk's name likely comes from "kurruk" which means to hang one's head in sorrow, shame, or disappointment, but you could interpret it as coming from longer words meaning things like to lower one's head as if to look for something or to fall head over heels.

You can check my "eskimo on main" tag for more, or send me another ask. My messages are open too, if you would prefer that

#response #eskimo on main #water tribe

80 notes · View notes

tsukihimeyfan · 4 years ago

Text

Sorting the main cast of AtLA into Hogwarts Houses

I know I’m late to the party because I’ve seen many different people tackle this before, but I feel like it is my civic duty as both a Potterhead and an AtLA stan to put in my two cents, since every single time I’ve seen it talked about people either misinterpret what each House values in their members or pick a House by taking into account only one aspect of their personalities. I want to make it clear that these are my own opinions, which I’m basing on the definitions we’ve gotten of the main traits of each House over the years and the “core values” of each AtLA character, and that I’m in no way am I trying to insult anyone who thinks differently. That being said, here goes nothing!

Let’s start with the easy ones. Namely, the Fire Siblings:

1) Azula is 100%, undoubtedly, definitely, incontrovertibly Slytherin. Just doing a quick rundown of the qualities Salazar Slytherin prized in his handpicked students, as stated by the Sorting Hat, Albus Dumbledore and Pottermore: Cunning? Check. Resourcefulness? Check. A disregard for rules? Check. Using any means to achieve her ends? Check. Shrewdness? Check. Ambition? Check. Self-preservation? Check. Pride? Check. An argument could even be made that, as a member of the Fire Nation Royal Family, Azula also kind of meets the “blood purity” criteria. I’m sure most of us agree on this. Even if she does exhibit a lot of loyalty to her father as well as courage and intelligence, there is just no contest. Azula is one of the most Slytherin characters I’ve ever seen outside of the Harry Potter universe.

2) In the same way, Zuko is irrefutably a Hufflepuff. Hear me out! I know that he’s very brave and daring, but when we think of Zuko, what is his most essential trait, what do people tell us again

and again

about Zuko’s character?

He’s a hard worker. And what’s the House of the hard-working?

"You might belong in Hufflepuff, Where they are just and loyal, Those patient Hufflepuffs are true, And unafraid of toil.”

You guessed it. Hufflepuff. Of course, that’s not the only trait valued by this House that he exhibits. Who is more loyal in the series than the child who got half his face burned off and still did his best to earn the love and respect of the one responsible? Who never faltered in his loyalty even when he was sent away on an impossible mission? Who spouted angry words most of the time yet was willing to let his ticket home go temporarily in favor of ensuring the safety of his Uncle and his crew? That’s right, our boy Zuko. That very loyalty to his father is what unfortunately bound him for the longest time, until he was forced to face what a monster he was and let go of it in favor of more important things, namely his own morals and his loyalty to his Uncle.

He also has an incredibly strong sense of justice, as proven by the above statements, as well as this moment:

and he can be incredibly patient when he needs to be, as seen during The Blue Spirit and the Southern Raiders episodes.

Hufflepuffs are also said to be fair (which he clearly is), dedicated (need I say more?), honest (which Mr. shouts-his-feelings-at-the-top-of-his-lungs and can’t-lie-without-being-obvious-or-glancing-away-and-has-been-found-out-every-time-he-tried of course is) and modest (this one he starts without but by the time he joins the Gaang there isn’t anyone more modest or humble)

As “an idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor” , Zuko is the Hufflepuffiest Hufflepuff to ever Hufflepuff and I will die on this hill

3) Another easy one is our girl Suki, whom I’d say is a Gryffindor through and through, even if she is very loyal to her friends.

The rest of the Gaang under the cut.

The other members of Team Avatar are a bit trickier because they all exhibit a pretty even mix of traits from more than one House, but still if we just concentrate on their defining characteristics we can get to an answer.

4) I’d argue that Sokka belongs in Ravenclaw, even though he is of course quite brave and extremely loyal to his loved ones, not only because he’s a strategist and an inventor, but also because, as best stated by Master Piandao:

Ravenclaws most value wit, learning, intelligence, creativity and wisdom (this last one is a bit iffy but I’m sure he’ll get there when he’s older), as well as priding themselves on being original in their ideas and methods. That’s Sokka to a T.

5) Katara gave me a hard time. She’s unbelievably loyal to her friends and family, she’s compassionate, patient, fair, hard working and dedicated, with a REALLY strong sense of justice, so a case can be made for Hufflepuff easily. However she can also be quite cunning when she wants to (most obviously during The Waterbending Scroll, City of Walls and Secrets, The Painted Lady, and The Runaway), she has a lot of ambition (if you count every variation of “I will make the world a better place by force if I have to”), she disregards the rules when it suits her (again The Waterbending Scroll as well as The Runaway) and she can be proud at times, so we could argue she’s a Slytherin. She’s also undoubtedly very intelligent and even quite wise for her age. It took me a while to decide but then I pondered; at her very core, what are the statements that define her? What words just scream “that’s it, that’s Katara”? They are, of course, these two phrases:

The first sounded incredibly Gryffindor to me, and the second is half Gryffindor half Hufflepuff, so it had to be between those two. As such, I decided to look into Gryffindor first. Katara is, of course, astoundingly courageous, but what else? I had to actually look up definitions for the Gryffindor traits besides courage because they all just kinda meant “brave” to me initially 😅, but what I found was:

*Nerve: “one's steadiness and courage in a demanding situation”. Yep. Who’s the most level-headed, steady and reliable person whenever the Gaang is in any kind of pinch? That’s right. Katara

*Daring: “adventurous or audaciously bold“. Yep. I’d say she ties with Toph for boldest in the Gaang

*Determination: “firmness of purpose”. Yep, absolutely. See the above image from the Painted Lady. ‘Nuff said.

*Chivalry: can mean 2 things, one is “sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms”. All of that is true of her (her “arms” being her waterbending), but I found it interesting that to be chivalrous can also mean “gracious and honorable toward an enemy, especially a defeated one, and toward the weak or poor”. I’d argue that this fits her even more. Once again, just take a look at The Painted Lady episode.

*Courage and bravery: they can mean the same thing, namely “the ability to do something that frightens you” and of course that fits Katara, but the word courage in particular has another meaning, which is “strength in the face of pain or grief”...

I’d say she’s pretty good at that. I think that settles it, Katara is a Gryffindor.

Turns out that when it came to the water tribe siblings Bato was right all along

6) For Toph I was split between Gryffindor (thinking of her brash, bold nature) and Slytherin for a while, but after looking into Katara and researching all those definitions I think I have to give it to Slytherin. Of course, Toph doesn’t seem to be very ambitious unless you count “being recognized as the greatest earthbender in the world”, but she is quite cunning. She knows exactly how to use her “poor helpless blind girl” persona to get what she wants, as seen both on The Blind Bandit and The Runaway. She’s also an extremely good actress, being able to play the “reserved and obedient little girl” to her parents for years, and being easily able to pick it back up when it suits her.

She’s also stubborn, proud, and 100% willing to use any means, regardless of laws or rules, to get what she wants.

As for self preservation? Remember that her response when asked to teach Aang, which was crucial to save the world but would’ve compromised her secret, was this:

Slytherins can also “hesitate before acting, so as to weigh all possible outcomes before deciding exactly what should be done “ and my first instinct was to say that it didn’t fit Toph at all, but what is Toph if not a person who “waits and listens before striking”? Slytherins tend to favor Neutral Jing it seems.

Almost forgot that as a daughter of the Beifong family she’s sort of nobility and she technically also meets the “blood purity” criteria.

7) Finally, we get to my boy Aang. He was really difficult. He’s loyal, patient, fair, kind, modest (usually) and just but I can’t really call him a hard worker most of the time.

He’s brave, adventurous, determined and chivalrous but he does tend to get discouraged during demanding or stressful situations (his friends always make it better though)

He’s creative, very wise for his age, and quite smart (except when he’s playing around with Sokka in which case they share one brain cell 😂)

He can even be cunning when he needs to be. If he ever went to Hogwarts, he’d definitely be a Hat Staller like Harry. I heard someone say once that they considered Aang a Gryffindor because he liked to show off a lot, but that’s not really a Gryffindor trait (think of Neville Longbottom, Remus Lupin, Harry Potter and Minerva McGonagall. I think any one of them would sooner Stupefy themselves than go show off their skills in front of a crowd for no reason other than to brag).

Once again, we must pin down what it is that defines him, what his core is. After much thought, I decided it’s this:

It’s his compassion, which he learned from his people, and his desire to value and protect all life. It’s his loyalty to the ideologies of the Air Nomads of which he is the last remaining bastion. It’s his strong moral code, his sense of right and wrong, his wish to make friends and to believe the best of everyone. That’s his center. That is what makes him Avatar Aang. In light of that, I think we can consider Aang, first and foremost, a Hufflepuff.

In the end, Team Avatar is made up of one Ravenclaw, one Slytherin, one Gryffindor (two after Suki joins), and two Hufflepuffs

Ironic, that the House least valued in the Harry Potter universe is the one that houses arguably the most pivotal characters of Avatar the Last Airbender: Zuko and Aang. Fitting, that even in this they parallel each other.

This is already long enough so I don’t think I’ll do Mai, Ty Lee, or Iroh. Maybe some other time.

203 notes · View notes

imreallyhereforkataang · 4 years ago

Note

hello, i don’t know who to ask about this but i’m new to the fandom and saw that you really like kataang. what’s your interpretation of katara’s glance down after the kiss before the invasion? i’m not a fan of the surprise kiss trope but even with that said, i had thought she liked him back. it didn’t seem like she did at that point or through the rest of book 3, and then next thing we knew they were endgame in the finale. sorry for being a bother, i’m just a little confused (like katara i guess haha)

Hi, Anon! Welcome to the fandom! Hopefully it treats you nicely lol.

Ah yeah. I've seen this talked about a lot over the years. And, y'know, I get it. It can seem a little out-of-place at first since, as you noted, Katara shows signs of being romantically interested in Aang beforehand, and now that they've had their second kiss, she doesn't look too happy about it. As someone who ships them, I initially would have loved to see them happy in that moment, to take another minute to themselves just to share grins and maybe laugh a bit because they've taken that step, put their feelings out into the open, and they're both glad for it. To a shipper, or to someone who's rooting for our protagonist to express his feelings, this does feel like a celebratory moment. I'm taken out of the context of the scene for a second because the pretty music has shot in and I'm still surprised at Aang's move and I'm happy to see an actual, mutual (as Katara leans in) kiss between them.

Then again, this situation is a lot realer for them than it is for me. I'm the viewer, I can hear The Cave of Two Lovers' theme, I can see this being painted in a positive light because we see these two come together for a brief moment, and the narrative is, in a sense, praising that. In-universe, though, it's a bit more complicated, and Katara looking sad really isn't so out-of-place.

Remember where they are and what they're doing, what they were saying moments before and what they're about to risk. For them, this is the quiet before the storm, their possibly final goodbye. Aang is about to fly off and face his destiny, confront what he's been training for over most of the year, "since the day we met" as Katara puts it, and determine the fate of the world based on whether he wins or loses. Whether he comes back or not. And he puts the reality of the situation out there. "What if...what if I don't come back?" It's the threat of that possibility that spurs him to kiss Katara. And she figures as much.

Despite the music suggesting otherwise, this isn't a happy scene (and perhaps that's why we don't get the full score until the finale, because this kiss is only foreshadowing what could be). It's tense, and bittersweet, and pretty tragic imo. Aang knows he could die. He says so. And then he kisses her. And I feel like Katara breaking out into a great big smile in that moment, even though she does have feelings for him, would just seem off. Idk, personally I'm not sure how you (impersonal) can celebrate finally kissing the person you like when you remember that what drove them to make their move just now is the very real possibility they might never see you again. That they're about to leave and face that risk, and there's nothing for you to do about it. Seems like an upsetting situation to be in.

There's also the fact that I'm skeptical Katara didn't already know Aang had feelings for her. I'm not saying it was always on her mind or that she paid much attention to it, she may have been putting all that stuff on the back burner or pretending it wasn't there as much as it was (including her own feelings) to focus on more important things, but I think she at least knew it subconsciously. I mean, Aang's not very subtle sometimes lol, and they've shared plenty of moments. So when Aang kisses her and Katara jerks back and her eyes widen in surprise, it's not because she didn't expect Aang to have these feelings (at least imo), but because she was in the middle of talking and is taken aback that Aang broke the unspoken barrier between them.

They're touchy feely throughout the show. Katara's kissed him on the cheek plenty of times, they've even kissed on the lips before now. They have sparks, and they've been dancing around them quite a lot, from the Book 3 premiere at the latest. But they haven't gone that extra step to put it out there too far, where there's no mistaking the meaning behind these gestures. I think, on Katara's end, she would have been okay with putting off making any official moves for a while, given the war and several other possible factors preventing her from feeling able to spend too much conscious thought and emotion on it, and so she's surprised that Aang's kissed her because they'd been keeping their more romantic intentions implicit up until then. She won't be realizing afterwards or celebrating in her head that "omg, the guy I('ve sorta been avoiding my feelings for but actually do) like likes me back," because she’s known this, but it’s been left unsaid and kept slightly quiet in Katara's musings. Now, it's out there in the open, they're past the safe zone, there's little room for ignoring the feelings anymore, and it sucks so much that they had to make their way there now. It's such tragic timing, a kiss that doesn't stem from a smiles and rainbows conversation where they sit down to talk about their feelings and where they want to go from there, but a kiss done out of desperation, out of the possibility that Aang doesn't come back. Through that lens, it's almost like they kissed "too early," especially for what happens next.

See, my impression is that Aang's kiss was meant for two possible scenarios -- Aang loses and thus doesn't come back, which means there's obviously no future for him and Katara. Alternatively, the day is won, the war is over, he comes back and the world is finally at peace; they can stop running, they can celebrate and breathe and talk about where they're going from here in an environment more appropriate for that. And since Katara kissed him back, it seems like she affirmed that there's something there for them, given he returns. But instead, something happens that I don't think they anticipated. Aang does come back, but he didn't win. So, in terms of Katara and Aang, they're now at a bit of an impasse, a situation that their kiss wasn't intended for, and it leads to this semi-awkward limbo because Aang's still alive but ideally that kiss between them wouldn't have happened yet.

Everyone needs to regroup, start it all over again, keep grinding and come up with a new plan. There's no time to get sidetracked, now more than ever. And, to me, that's reflective of what happens to Katara after Aang kisses her and takes off from the sub.

Katara's reaction is to dwell on the kiss. She wants to, but Sokka reminds her that there's no time to. So Katara snaps herself out of it, and she moves on. And then they survive the Day of Black Sun, but the fight isn't over for them yet.

You asked about the DoBS kiss, so I'm not gonna waste your time hyper-analyzing Ember Island Players because there is a lot that's been offered and discussed about that episode. But if you were to simplify the reason for Katara's stance there, it's pretty much just holding up what was established in DoBS.

At the Invasion, while caught up in surprise because she had an expectation that they wouldn't broach the subject this way, if at all, for a while, Katara kissed Aang back, and she kissed him back because she wanted to. But since then, she's had more time to think, and she won't be so caught off guard next time. Aang expresses during EIP that he wants to try a relationship with Katara sooner rather than later, and that he'd thought she felt the same since she kissed him back (as well as the moments they shared before), but Katara is adamant now about this not being the right time. She fully intends to keep her head in the game, like Sokka reminded her at the Invasion. That's essentially what she thinks Aang needs to remember now, too (and yeah, like I said, there are other ideas that can be brought in that contribute to the articulation, but this is the primary point being conveyed here).

Whatever the reason, her response causes Aang to reevaluate his conclusion about where they stand. Even though the war isn't over, he thought that, because he survived and Katara accepted his kiss before, maybe they could try anyways. But Katara still feels stuck in limbo, and she makes that clear. It's also significant to note that Katara doesn't make Aang any promises about being together after the war, which imo was a good move on the writers' part (I have a wip about this but idk when that'll be done lol). Anyways, Aang backs off, following her lead and putting romance aside.

I do want to talk about the second half of Book 3 as a whole, though, not just EIP. I've seen people criticize this portion of the story in terms of Kataang, but I think that, besides the substance of these episodes, it's important to keep in mind that the last 10 episodes of the series (The Western Air Temple and on) originally aired 7.5 months after Day of Black Sun. Not only that, but these episodes all aired within the same week. It was a big, hyped-up event on Nickelodeon dubbed "Countdown to the Comet," and it took place over the course of 6 days. That sort of schedule for finishing a show is...unusual. But it was also intentional here.

Even though the episodes don't have to be watched that way, the final 10 episodes are, in a way, all together the final big bang of the series. They're majorly dedicated to the most critical elements of the main story, including Zuko finally, after 2.5 seasons, joining the gaang and him finding his place in it. I'd say that The Western Air Temple to The Southern Raiders are most generally about that, about Zuko being accepted and making amends especially to the original three members of the gaang (who he's hurt much more than Toph). The viewer is gratified by watching Zuko do what we all hoped for him, forming relationships with Aang, Sokka, and Katara after all this time, merging our most important A and B plots. The other major things the last 10 episodes are for are the final battle, of course, because that's going to be our conclusion to this journey, and Aang's preparation for it.

So yes, onscreen interactions between Aang and Katara are fewer, but by no means does that make the rest of Book 3 an undoing of what they have. All their setup has been established, we're good on that, and we're going to leave that relatively be for now while we delve into the action until we're ready to revisit. And besides, imo, they still have extremely critical moments in the last 10 episodes that I am deeply, deeply happy exist. They're more subtle and less explicitly romantic -- a lot of them take place when they're not even around each other, but they speak volumes to me about how Aang and Katara have influenced each other, and how important the other is to them.

These 10 episodes are like a refocus of our largest priorities, and Kataang coming together is put on hold (again, I think that benefits the main story) for the end. But even though we watch less scenes where they're together, with more scenes of Zuko joining and hanging out with each of them individually in place, there's hardly indication of Katara and Aang avoiding each other after their DoBS kiss, or even post-EIP.

They're still friends first. What they're avoiding is not each other, but a new possibility for themselves, because right now they're choosing to ground their feet in what they have. Basically, around each other, they're pretending what unfolded between them never happened until, possibly, on Katara's say so, it's appropriate to resume that aspect of their relationship.

And after the war, probably into a few months of peace (based on the state of Sokka's leg), she decided it was. She felt ready, and they dove right in.

I hope that clears things up! And don't worry, you weren't a bother at all! I love talking about these two, but unfortunately I became really busy the past couple days (plus this response got deleted and I couldn't salvage it because I saved a copy of a cursed screenshot of Aang and ig it was scary enough to erase my clipboard history :3). Thanks for your patience lol!

#i hate tumblr it happened again #id in alt text #kataang #kataangtag #atla #avatar the last airbender #katara #aang #irhfk replies #oh yes and btw i have LONG been aware of the other storyboard lol #i have also listened to the official commentary for this ep #the girl is sad for him yk #and she been knew he has feelings for her #so i'd appreciate if ppl would not rb the other storyboard. seeing as it's not canon it's irrelevant to the conversation

80 notes · View notes

jasmine-tea-latte · 4 years ago

Text

(Some of) My Favorite Zutara fics

Warning, looong post ahead!

Zutara Fanworks Appreciation Week snuck up on me, so sadly I haven’t had time to properly contribute anything. I’d love to participate next year or maybe even before then (I play by my own rules, folks!)

Still, though. I wanted to at the very least pay tribute to some of my all-time favorite Zutara fanfics that I’ve enjoyed and have inspired me over the years.

(Click here for my post on Self-Love Saturday, where I shamelessly promote my series The Phoenix and the Dragon and share a bit of backstory behind how it came to be in the first place.)

I’ve shipped Zutara ever since Fall 2006, and I have been fortunate to read so many excellent fanfics since then.

Some have made me laugh, others made me sob, others straight up made my heart burn like it was shot full of lightning:

So in honor of @zkfanworkweek, below are 13 of my favorite Zutara fanfics, in no particular order:

~*~*~

Rated G(eneral)/T(een)

Engulfed by Luaburachid

Zuko finds himself engulfed by love.

A sweet one-shot of our favorite firebender discovering how deep his feelings are for a certain waterbender. It’s just pure fluff and always brings a smile to my face.

we hold our hearts in silence by psychedelic_aya

Seventy years later, Korra tries to figure out Zuko and Katara.

Oh, this one is so bittersweet but oh so good. It alternates between flashbacks and Korra’s POV watching an older Zuko and Katara interact. Just… ugh. My heart.

Day 6: Found by SooperSara

When Sokka comes up with an idea to get rid of Joo Dee, Katara finds herself in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se with a tea server she did not expect to meet.

I love a good Jasmine Dragon AU where Katara / the Gaang actually interacts with Zuko while he’s undercover as Lee from the tea shop instead of what happened in “The Guru.” This is so much fun to read, and my only complaint is that it’s not longer.

Celestial by SooperSara

An unexpected dip into the koi pond at the North Pole brings Zuko in contact with the spirits and grants him insight to his destiny. A destiny he isn’t sure he wants.

Another by the talented SooperSara! Actually, you should check out all of her stuff. It’s all so good, and I absolutely adore this one. It’s pretty canon-compliant and the ending… oh, the ending makes me tearbend. Ma’am, I’m still weepy.

this little fuse we lit made something in you by SecondStarOnTheLeft

There's a secret door in the wall of Katara's room. Things go a little further than planned, once she opens it.

What happens when Katara discovers a secret tunnel (secret, secret, secret tunnel, yeah!) that leads directly to the Fire Lord’s bedroom? Reading this fic is like settling down to drink a hot cup of Iroh’s tea – it’s soothing, sweet, and thoroughly warms the soul.

Dancing in the Dark by damagectrl

Post-Season 2 AU: While in Ba Sing Se, Katara and Toph hear a rumor about two tea servers in the lower tiers of Ba Sing Se and sneak away go to investigate only to have their suspicions confirmed. On her personal time, Katara tries to teach herself to dance and fails so badly, a masked man takes pity on her to try to help.

This is one most OGs will probably remember. It’s also one of the first ZK fics I ever read, back when I was a wee lil bb Zutarian! It was originally posted in Oct. 2006 and takes place between “Appa’s Lost Days” and “Lake Laogai.” One of my all-time favorite Bluetara AND Jasmine Dragon AUs. Heck, all of damagectrl’s works are fantastic reads, for that matter. I highly recommend checking them out, especially this classic.

such selfish prayers by andromeda3116

Katara's ambition, so long set aside for the good of others, breaks free and sets fire to her soul. Or, Katara has a vision of her canon future, casts it aside, and becomes a world-changing politician instead.

There’s a reason why this fic is one of the highest rated on AO3, if not THE highest. It does right by Katara and gives her the ending she deserves. 10/10 would recommend.

better than things dreamed of in the forest by catie_writes_things (SERIES)

As a child, Bumi knew: his mother was a waterbender, his father was an airbender, and he was a firebender. Something about these facts did not add up, but it would take him a long time to understand.

Hands down, one of the most heartbreaking fics / series I’ve ever read. The author describes this as the adultery fic for people who hate adultery fics, and it certainly packs an emotional punch in the gut. Personally, I’m not one for the “Zuko and Katara have an affair while she’s with Aang” fics in general, but this one examines the fallout caused by a single night of passion and all of the consequences that stem from it, especially how the ripple effect of their choices impacts everyone. Even though it breaks my heart all over again every time I reread it, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

~*~*~

(More fics, several with high ratings, are listed below the cut)

Rated M(ature)/E(xplicit)

Moonlight and Sunshadow by GrapefruitTwostep

The dragon offered Katara a deal: protection for her family and tribe if she lived with it for a year and a day. And she said yes. Because what other way was there to save her people? But there was more to the dragon than Katara bargained for. An "East of the Sun, West of the Moon" retelling.

A fairy tale AU in which Zuko is cursed to live as a dragon and Katara is certainly no damsel in distress. You’ve probably heard some version of the original fairy tale before that this fic is inspired by, and it’s such a delight to read.

The Blackfish and the Dragon by ama

Katara grew up in the Southern Water Tribe under the tutelage of Hama, the only waterbender ever to have escaped Fire Nation captivity. When Zuko arrives at the South Pole, seeking the Avatar, they are more than ready to defend him. Then one day, the Southern Water Tribe receives a petition for peace, and a proposal of marriage.

One of the best arranged marriage AUs I’ve come across. Iroh is crowned Fire Lord after defeating Ozai, and Katara must find some way to peacefully coexist with her hotheaded new husband as she also finds a place for herself in the Fire Nation.

Confused by thispieceofwork

Zuko stood. "You told Aang you were confused. Are you confused because of me?" Katara was silent, arms crossed in front of her. "Don't make me answer that."

Starts during “The Ember Island Players” where Zuko overhears Aang and Katara’s private conversation on the balcony. This is another fic that will shatter your heart into a million pieces but it’s oh so worth it in the end.

A Heated Exchange by Smediterranea (SERIES)

Katara had not considered herself to be someone who would have earth-shattering sex with a guy whose name she didn’t even know. But here she was, certain that she had never made a better decision in her life.

An AU two-part series of Katara getting familiar with a certain handsome guy who lives down the hall in her college dorm. It’s funny, cute, and cuddling while watching Planet Earth has never been hotter.

Bonus day: Tea Shop by cincilin

"Hello and welcome to the Jasmine Dragon. Today's special is—" he cut himself of with a sharp intake of breath, at the same moment that Katara placed the voice and looked up.

'He has hair.' was her first thought. Then the rest of her brain caught up with her and she started to get up, sending Momo scrambling to hide under the table. Season 2 AU, during "The Guru."

I told y’all, I *LOVE* a good Jasmine Dragon AU fic, and this one-shot checks all the boxes: heart-to-heart conversations? Witty dialogue and banter? Bending match that turns into a makeout and something steamier? It’s got it all.

~*~*~

This was only going to be a list of maybe 5-7fic recs, but well… oops. I also kept the above list to completed works only, just because this post is already long enough.

Several of my other favorites that get honorable mention include:

Thinking Out Loud (WIP)

The Summit (WIP)

Sparrowkeet (Series)

Purr

The Nature of the Blue Spirit

Rhythm of the Rain

Fault Lines

Clarity

Seriously, there are just SO MANY good Zutara fics out there. I had to cut myself off from adding even more, because I could go on and on and on. Much like Admiral Zhao, I have no. self. control.

I love you all, my fellow Zutarians ❤️💙💜 Mwah! Happy ZFAW!

#Zutara Fanworks Appreciation Week #zkfanworkweek #zutara #zuko x katara #zuko #katara #zfaw2020 #also i apologize if the formatting is being weird on mobile #it looks fine on desktop but that's tumblr for ya

69 notes · View notes

halfpint55 · 4 years ago

Text

A Defence of Kataang with regards to how they are portrayed in TLoK (it’s long but there’s headcanons at the end)

Note: This is not about shipping wars. This is a safe zone. This is not about Zutara vs Kataang. This is me defending Kataang and the characters themselves...from the writers.

I initially wrote this as a response to a post that got me heated. My reblog just made it too long so here it is as its own post.

Now this post ripped apart Kataang as a couple but more than that said some stuff about Aang himself that hurt my heart. I didn’t really want to pick on this post but its condemning of Kataang was based almost entirely in what we know of them as parents in TLoK and honestly it’s that lil nugget of canon that I take issue with. It has bothered me from the get go because it doesn’t make sense from a writing and story perspective, and it’s been pissing me off since I watched it.

TL;DR nice and early bc this post is gonna be a long one:

This particular condemnation of Kataang rests almost entirely on the SHITTY way they were portrayed as parents by the writers of LoK, and in all honesty, on this particular topic, canon should be ignored.

Overall Kataang parenting is of my biggest gripes with LoK because in terms of writing it’s totally incongruous - it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t align, and it makes zero sense for what we know of those characters, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive the showrunners for allowing it to be written it into canon.

I will also preface this by saying I like LoK - love it. I had a scroll through the comments and reblogs on this post, and a lot of the hate towards this portrayal of Kataang ended up being blamed on the “terrible writing of LoK” which is not where I stand at all. That being said I am so angry at the writers for this one.

The other portion of the concurring comments that were very hateful towards Kataang came from Zutara shippers and honestly for me, although I do ship Kataang, this not a just a Kataang issue. I’m of the belief that Zutara would’ve just as easily been written to have similar issues due to very similar dynamics - Zutara also would have been two powerful benders from very different cultures, and with Zuko/Aang (whoever you ship w her) having a massively important global leadership role that is embedded in who they are, and therefore impossible to ignore as a factor in their relationship.

Now let me be clear, my desire to reject canon on this front is by no means me wanting to believe the best of my faves, and not wanting to hear a word against Aang. It’s not even necessarily a defence of Kataang bc I ship it that hard (I mean I do but I can set that aside for the sake of argument if that’s what you need from me here).

The first, and main issue people have with Aang/Kataang in Korra, is the first point of the original post:

So why in hell would [Katara] be okay with Aang ignoring TWO of their children’s complete existence once he found out they had an airbending son?

And I agree with the post on this front; Katara would not have allowed her children to each be treated differently by their father. I had the same initial thought when watching LoK, and it’s the reason I hate and want to ignore the canon of LoK so badly.

As much as it hurts to think of, we have to accept that Aang wouldn’t have been able to stop his preferential treatment for Tenzin from bleeding through into his parenting just out of a desperate desire to save his culture (which is absolutely understandable - doesn’t make it okay, but it’s understandable; Aang suffered an incredible loss, a massive cultural trauma which he alone carries the burden of). So of course he wasn’t able to hide how excited he was, and forgot to be mindful of his attitude and behaviour towards Kya and Bumi. So this aspect of canon Kataang? Yeah, I’m with it. So far so good. EXCEPT the most unrealistic element of canon is now that Katara would let him. I simply do not believe for a second that Katara would’ve allowed Aang to be the kind of parent LoK painted him to be.

However, I do not think it would’ve been a point of contention between the two of them! Katara would pull him aside, Katara would gently (but firmly) point out what Aang mightn’t be able to see for himself - he’s focusing too hard on Tenzin.

And Aang would listen.

All throughout A;tLA the two of them often help the other sort through their stuff. Aang has a great track record of being receptive to Katara’s advice and help (calming him down when discovering Monk Gyatso’s body, The Desert when he Appa is stolen, Serpent’s Pass when he’s bottling his feelings about Appa being missing). He’s also just so receptive to others’ ideas - he just goes with it and trusts in his friends (think of his trust in Katara’s plan to rescue Haru, his trust in staying behind with Sokka in the library to get the eclipse info). Aang’s humility is one of the most incredible things about him and it’s at the core of who he is. He would absolutely be able to hear Katara telling him he’s focusing too hard on one child - he would be open, and he’d listen.

So to me now canon just does not make sense at all. it does not align with their established character traits. And yes, people change as they get older and grow into adulthood but honestly, the elements of their respective personalities that we’re talking about here are pretty core elements of who these two people are.

Katara has always been fiercely protective of those she loves, strongwilled, stubborn, and ready to (vocally or physically) fight for what she believes is right and that wouldn’t disappear as she gets older. She wouldn’t let Aang’s preferrential treatment slide.

Aang has always been, and chose to be despite his loss, an optimistic, kind, believe in the best of humanity kind of person. He’s open to all points of view, he’s a good listener, he always tries his absolute best to find solutions that are good for everyone. And again his humility, his willingness to love, is who he is. He believes all humans (including fkn OZAI) and all life are sacred, he believes in the absolute right to life. The kid is a vegetarian for crying out loud.

Now the parts of the take in the post that hurt my heart to read about what OP thinks of Aang:

“Aang never made an attempt to establish anything resembling a real familial unit with Katara, basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender [...] she was treated like some trophy wife to give birth to airbenders and that’s it!”

I wasn’t going to address this in this post until I read the comments in the notes, because people seem to agree. They share the sentiment that Katara was reduced to “just a love interest” by the two ending up together.

However I do very much take issue w the notion that Aang “basically just stayed around until she popped out an Airbender” (and honestly that entire paragraph - we don’t actually know that Aang didn’t make an effort to establish a family unit). As much as the LoK writers fucked up in their portrayal of Kataang as parents, this is a much harsher judgement of Aang’s character as a husband and father than anything implied by Aang and Katara’s children. I just don’t buy that Aang would view Katara (or anyone he married, even if you don’t ship Kataang) as a trophy wife, whose only role is to have airbender children. He never has viewed her that way - he has always looked at her like she’s the sun, and the most important person to him after she pulled him out of the iceburg. He loves her the most of anyone on the planet. It does not align with his character, his values or beliefs that he’d think of her (or any partner) that way. He is so besotted with Katara for who she is it HURT me to read that part of your take. Aang simply would never. Look at how he looks at her!

What’s more is the unwavering respect and deference he shows Katara as his waterbending master - he recognises and loves her as the whole, complete, three dimensional, TALENTED POWERFUL INCREDIBLE WOMAN that she is. She is NEVER “just” a love interest for Aang. (But ALSO, do we respect Suki any less for being Sokka’s obvious love interest??? No. suki is written to be so badass that Sokka is HER love interest and I think Katara has equally badass energy but I digress).

Moving on!

OP made an excellent point that there would’ve been culturally different values between the two but I don’t think it would’ve been family that was the clashing point. Yes the airbenders value spirituality and enlightenment. But they lived together in massive communities! They supported and raised one another. Their community and culture was strong, and they were bonded in their spirituality! They value love, as well as enlightenment, peace, and the lives of all.

Now, again the points they made about the cultural divides within the Kataang family unit are valid, but also again I dislike how they chose to portray this in LoK. It would definitely be a struggle they faced as a couple. However I think they really missed an opportunity here with where they took it. Because they do at one point in the comics have Katara bring up the fact that their family will be a blend of two cultures, and she brings it up because Aang is trying so hard to bring balance back to the world by means of seperation.

They’ve known from the get go of being a couple that they’re going to have to navigate being a culturally blended family unit.

So I find it so shitty that they wrote it so that Kya got to learn the waterbending culture, Tenzin got Air and bumi got…nothing? It’s dangerously close to the way Disney does the “the girls are carbon copies of mum, and the boys are carbon copies of dad” thing (think Lady and the Tramp). It’s lazy. Especially when we had that “separation is an illusion” episode, AND things like Zuko learning different nation’s styles and applying them to his firebending, and Sokka learning an element of strategy or fighting from every nation.

So give us Kya using Airbending moves with her waterbending (maybe she invents the water scooter)! Give us Tenzin doing more grounded moves that Aunty Toph (or Lin, while they were together) taught him from earthbending.

There are much more creative ways to illustrate the bumps and troubles Kataang might have run into in trying to navigate incorporating equal parts of their cultures in their children and family unit. Even just smaller scale issues like food and meals - how do they figure out how to do mealstimes with Aang’s vegetarianism with Katara’s culturally significant Water Tribe meat dishes? And then even taking into account how picky little kids can be!

Give me a scene where they literally just ate moon pies for a week because toddler Kya would scream if you put anything else down in front of her.

Maybe Bumi demanded sea prunes over and over but Katara and Bumi are the only ones who like them, and Bumi bonds with his mother this way - they go on little one-on-one outings to water tribe restaurants in Republic City, searching for the most authentic sea prunes!

Kya maybe likes the water tribe fashions the most because it helps her connect with her namesake BUT Kya also has a playful sense of humour - not unlike Monk Gyatso - Aang sees how much she loved moon pies and teaches her to throw them with waterbending.

We know Tenzin was a calm, quiet, and possibly shy child. Maybe he loved to hole himself away learning crafts. Give me Tenzin learning to tattoo, Tenzin learning to carve (and carving his first glider - it crashes of course), but also Tenzin learning to carve water tribe adornments and necklaces. Katara tries at first but when she gets busy Sokka comes in and teaches Tenzin to break all the carving rules Katara has laid down (”it doesn’t need to be perfect my little pupil - let the creativity flow!”)

Tenzin may not be able to waterbend but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn other means of healing. As the littlest he spent a lot of time watching Katara work - she teaches him to tie splints, dress wounds, and yes deliver babies.

If you made it here I love you so much for reading. I love sharing my thoughts so HIGH FIVE YOU MADE IT, ur now my friend - the friendship is non-refundable sorry 😌😌

94 notes · View notes

whentheynameyoujoy · 4 years ago

Text

If There Was One Thing That Could Make Me Go ‘Spoilerphobia’ Good…

Although I generally don’t give a damn about spoilers and in fact sometimes seek them out, there’s a point the anti-spoiler crowd makes that I agree with. When you know how things are going to turn out, your viewing experience tends to change from “first-time discovery” to “analytical repeat viewing”. Suddenly, you’re not watching a story unfold, wondering how it turns out, but interpreting it in the view of the ending, assuming that everything that precedes it ties into and sets it up—because it should. Now, this doesn’t matter all that much if the thing you’re watching is internally consistent and actually does set up the conclusion.

If it doesn’t, well…

So anyway, if there’s something my ATLA rewatch highlighted to me, it’s how confusing and trippy it was to watch the show as a thoroughly-spoiled presumed Cataanger-to-be.

Here are my thoughts from eight years ago as I viewed the story for the very first time, knowing that Cataang was endgame and expecting the story to actually conform to the ship.

The Boy in the Iceberg

“If no one told me Cataang was endgame, I’d have guessed from this single shot. A story about a hero saving the world, and when the hero meets the main female character it’s shown like this? Doesn’t exactly spell ‘trope breaker’ to me. I’m glad TPTB are committing to this ship and developing it from the get go.”

“Though I don’t understand the necessity for the age/maturity gap, or for it to be highlighted in this way. It says quite a lot that while Aang views himself as a child and seems to have lots of growing up to do, Katara needs to be reminded she’s still a kid and almost immediately assumes the role of the Gaang’s resident caretaker.”

The Warriors of Kyoshi

“After a few episodes of pretty heavy stuff and Katara interacting with it while fully embracing her motherly role, we’re getting a filler with lots of space for developing the relationship in a romantic way... yet nothing happens. All pursuing is decidedly done by Aang who seems desperate for Katara’s attention which she doesn’t give to him until the end when it’s framed like a mum lovingly watching a nagging son. Neither does Katara recognise Aang’s obsession with fame for what it is—a desire for her to be smitten with him, just a little bit. Not even the opportunity to display some jealousy on her part is seized as she seems more annoyed with his vanity than put out by being sidelined.”

Jet

“Alright, I guess Cataang is going to be the ‘get out of the friendzone’ type of romance because this is getting ridiculous. It’s been ten episodes and so far not a single sign of romantic interest on Katara’s part. Yet there is absolutely no doubt the girl’s crushing on Jet hard and itching to pursue it, war or no war, so it’s not like there’s any ambivalence in terms of her feelings for Aang—they’re not romantic at this point, period. I wonder what Aang will do to become a blip on Katara’s luv radar.”

The Fortuneteller

“So we get a romantic shot of Katara from Aang’s POV, a hilarious romantic shot of Aang from Meng’s POV, no indication that Katara perceives Aang as a romantic possibility at all, and the whole episode is about unrequited crushes, failing to catch your crush’s attention, needing to move on, and destiny being bullshit. Yup, definitely the ‘get out of the friendzone’ type of romance.”

“OK, I’m confused because there is some thematic clashening going on. The point of the episode so far has been about not minding prophecies and that everyone’s the master of their own destiny, yet Katara’s marriage to a powerful bender is apparently bang on the money? So what is the story telling me, that a) Katara learned nothing about her crippling reliance on fate? Or that b) she’ll pursue Aang, of whose existence she needed to be reminded, to fulfil Aunt Wu’s prophecy? I don’t think I like this. On the other hand, the romance is beginning at last. It’s now impossible for Katara not to factor this revelation into her dealings with Aang, and since Cataang’s endgame, there’s no way she won’t see him in a new light. We’re totally getting lots of pining, aborted touches, and blushing, Toph’s-crush-on-Sokka style, baby.”

The rest of Book I—no sign of Katara’s emotional investment in a romantic Cataang whatsoever

The Cave of Two Lovers

“I have no idea why this episode exists. Not only does the legend of lovers from enemy villages not fit Cataang AT ALL, but the whole story is a thinly veiled excuse for getting the two of them to kiss—and they don’t? And Katara’s so weirdly utilitarian about it? You know, for a girl who was validated in her obsession with destiny and informed she could very well end up marrying this guy, she’s acting pretty nonchalant about possibly kissing him for the first time and forgets about it the second the plot stops hinting at it. So what was the point? Christ, I hope the experience at least finally gets Katara to reflect on her relationship to Aang.”

The rest of Book II—no sign of Katara’s emotional investment in a romantic Cataang whatsoever

Return to Omashu

“OK, I really need her to verbalize her feelings once because ffs.”

City of Walls and Secrets

“I could so do with a single moment of Katara reacting to Aang in a similar way and suppressing those feelings. Hell, being infatuated with his power as The Fortuneteller seeded would be enough at this point because I’m being fed nothing.”

The Guru

“My post-catholic brain has no idea what this episode is saying about Aang’s feelings for Katara. Are Avatars as an entity supposed to live like hermits, with no romantic relationships whatsoever, otherwise they won’t ever master the Avatar State and will only go into it at random? Wait, that can’t be correct—Roku is in a loving marriage yet can glow up at will, meaning that romantic love clearly isn’t an obstacle. So what, is Pathik full of crap? Well, no, because everything he teaches Aang works, up to and including his advice to let go of Katara. So what about Aang’s love is such a problem? I’m also pretty confused about Pathik’s likening of the Air Nomads to Katara. Like yeah, the love and belonging Aang had with the Nomads survived and was transformed, but isn’t Cataang supposed to be a romance, albeit one that’s so far failed to manifest? I didn’t get romance from Aang’s relationship to any airbender. I don’t get this.”

The Headband

“FINALLY, a clear sign of Katara’s romantic feelings for Aang. And it took only 41 prior episodes where she either treats him like a baby, or has to be reminded by outside circumstances that he exists as a romantic option, so it’s not like there was much setup. I would also appreciate if Katara didn’t realise she’s attracted to Aang in the very same episode where she literally pretends to be his mum but beggars can’t be choosers. I now feel pretty confident in saying that I’m getting Katara blushing and pining like crazy at last.”

The romance doesn’t come up again for the next seven episodes

The Day of Black Sun

“WAIT, SHE WAS INTERESTED IN THE HEADBAND! She displayed romantic attraction! WTF happened? Why does she look like someone who was just violated by her sonion? OK, I need a resolution, I need them to address this, have a conversation, something!”

The romance doesn’t come up again for the next seven episodes

The Ember Island Players

“So we’re officially pretending The Headband didn’t happen, I guess. The only thing that surprises me at this point is my lack of surprise. Anyway, what’s the nature of Katara’s confusion? Because with four episodes left to go until the ship becomes endgame, I’d like more specificity as to her feelings since this line reads less like ‘I’m confused because war/I have no clue what my feelings are exactly’ and more like ‘I don’t know how to let you down gently/I had no idea you felt this way or what to do with it.’ Address this, please!!”

The romance doesn’t come up again for the 99% of the next four episodes

Avatar Aang

“They turned my girl into a golddigger. Fucking end me.

So what I’m getting from this is either a) Katara wasn’t interested in Aang until he became the best candidate for Aunt Wu’s prophecy, or b) Aang was originally supposed to recognise his one-sided puppy crush for what it was and overcome it.

I feel dirty.

Anyway, I heard people are into Zuko x Katara, maybe there’s some decent brain bleach about that.”

#anti bryke #anti-kataang

104 notes · View notes

su-univeralai · 3 years ago

Note

MAILEE???? AS PARENTS???? Tell us more Su.

Ok, Joy, so I was thinking about this a lot last night, and had originally thought that they would have 3 biological kids, Mai and Ty Lee get different sperm donors. Mai would get pregnant first and have a girl, and then Ty Lee would have twin boys. They would also foster orphans and teach them etiquette and how to defend themselves (but I'm not going to include them since they're only there until they age out of the system with some dope skills, or are adopted)

BUT THEN!!!

I thought.... Ty Lee is 1 or 7 identical sisters WHAT IF instead of having twin boys, she had like quintuplet (5) boys!!! But she gave them all very different names and made them do very different activities so they were their own people, unlike how she felt with her sisters. Of course the five of them would end up forming some sort of group gymnastics team or something so they could spend more time together.

IDK Joy! I'm conflicted on which route I wanna take. I'll lay both groups of kids out for you (and anyone else who's interested) and y'all can help decide which Mai Lee family will make the cut lmao.

Also going to put a cut here because... well this is gonna get looong

Yaisha (F) Firebender, 29: Yaisha is Mai's biological child, yet very much has personality close to her Titi (Ty Lee). She isn't a very skilled firebender when she starts, but cousin Ichika (Azula's daughter), trains her to become a pretty an average bender before heading off to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls. She latches onto Kya (steambaby) who is 3 years older than her and they become close like sisters. Seeing that Yaisha isn't the strongest bender, she is also taught dagger throwing, which she excels at like Mama. Although her firebending skills are quite avaerage, she uses them masterfully in the kitchen, specifically as a baker. She ends up marrying an earthbender at some point in the future (I have no other info on this dude yet, sorry lmao) and they settle down in Ba Sing Se and open a pastry shop next to the Jasmine Dragon.

Yaisha is there in both iterations of my idea. The rest of these OCs will be split between Ty Lee having twin earthbending boys (bc her sperm donor was an earthbender) or two firebenders, an earthbender, and two non-bender quintuplets.

Twins:

Siju and Dizai (M) Earthbenders, 27: Siju and Dizai are pretty skilled earthbenders for people who live in the Fire Nation without any proper training. While Yaisha trains at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, the twins are shipped off to train with Toph. The twins get super close with Suyin they become a trio until Su gets sent to Gao Ling to live with her grandparents. Siju is quite a skilled metalbender, but Dizai turns out to be a lavabender. Once they hone their skills, both of them come home to show Mama and Titi their skills. Everyone is very impressed.

Siju stays home and meets a midranking officer in the Fire Navy and they fall in love.

Dizai travels around the world and meets Sokka and Suki's daughter, Alayi. Even though Dizai is 6 years younger than Alayi, the two fall in love and settle in the SWT where Alayi wants to teach the new waterbenders how to master their element. Together, they have two children, an earthbender and a firebender.

Quintuplets:

Jaree (M) Non-Bender, 20: Jaree is a skilled chi blocker like Titi, but is also interested in welding. He becomes the youngest and best-known welder in the world but the age of 15. People come from all over the world to get beautifully designed weapons made by the boy. Jaree makes customized weapons for his Mama and Zaija on a regular basis as 'practice'. When he turns 18, he only does commissions because he enjoyed spending his time with his brothers dancing and messing around.

Zaija (M) Non-Bender, 20: Zaija on the other hand, takes after his Mama and is a skilled thrower. Jaree makes customized throwing stars, daggers, knives, etc for him. They are perfectly balanced and ensures that he never misses his target. when he's not small weapons and going on top secret missions for Shushu Zuko, he writes under the name Wang Fire (courtesy of Sokka). Wang Fire is the best-selling author for teen dramas. Only Sokka knows his secret.

Mozu (M) Firebender, 20: Mozu is an awful combat firebender, but he's very skilled in firebending as a healing art. He studies under the Bhanti sages to learn how to energy read with firebending. From there he learns the power of Reiki and massage therapy to heal people. Mozu and Shain start a healing business together, as Shain is a skilled acupuncturist and acupressurist. In his small amount of free time, he likes to study teas. Eventually, after the quintuplets stop competing, Mozu goes to help Iroh in Ba Sing Se at the tea shop.

Yaro (M) Firebender, 20: Where Mozu could barely fight, Yaro excels. Yaro is sent to the Sun Warriors to learn firebending from Ran and Shaw. After returning, he makes it his life mission to learn how to control the colors of his fire. By 17, he is able to create any color flame he wants. He explores how different things react based on the different temperatures and colors the flames are. Yaro becomes a potter, creating unique bowls, plates, etc for the nobles. He and Jaree open a gallery together to sell their masterpieces.

Shain (M) Earthbender, 20: Shain is the odd man out, being the only earthbender in the family. He is sent to train with Ayi Toph and discovers he's a very skilled metalbender. Between his metalbending abilities and knowledge of muscles and pressure points, Shain creates a better way of doing acupuncture than the experts have done for the past 300 years. Shain spends one season each year in Zaofu with Suyin and Bataar to better his metalbending and teach other metalbenders his acupuncture technique.

The five of them are all super flexible and able to get some height when jumping. They form a gymnastics and dance troupe of the five of them. They compete in the group version of bending dance competitions that Tiao Wu does. He's a big fan of them and is always siked when they let him dance with them.

OK! Here is a much longer than I intended answer to your Mai Lee babies ask. Please let me know what you think and which direction you think I should go because both would be interesting to have.

#mai lee #next gen atla universe #next gen atla kids #ask me #thanks for the ask joy!#ask me about my universe #this is getting more complicated #but I love it?#you should see my family tree #it's more chaotic than you can imagine #I'll post it soon lol #should ty lee have quintuplets or just twins?

8 notes · View notes

chaoticevilbean · 4 years ago

Text

Trying my hand at an Avatar Sokka AU. Gonna be weird Bc thassa me and I’m just That. Anyways, don’t expect too Much from this. And I’m gonna try to Make it good, but I also Haven’t watched the show a million times. Just a few.

It’ll probably include:

- No one knowing Sokka’s the Avatar except Kanna and Kya

- Sokka as Chief of the SWT. I will probably make him younger when his father leaves for plot purposes.

- Sokka starts as a firebender because the Spirits do something. It will never be clarified what they do.

- The former Avatar was Aang’s friend and saved him and Appa after they decided to run away together. However, it was only the duo that got put in the iceberg, preserved by the Avatar’s power, and that Avatar went into hiding without his best friend. He stayed alive and in hiding until he knew that it was unlikely anyone thought he was still alive. If it was assumed that the Avatar was gone forever, his successor would be safe from the Fire Nation. Especially because the raids would ensure the Earth Kingdom would be suspect instead of the Water Tribes.

- When the raids were done, the previous Avatar pulled a Jedi Master and just straight-up died to pass on the responsibilities.

- Sokka didn’t discover his abilities until he was about five or six. It was during a raid and he was with his mother and grandmother. He learned to control it quickly with their help. By control, I mean he doesn’t randomly cause steam or smoke or light firepits. He can hold his flames inside.

- Sokka attempted to copy the moves of the raiders who used bending, but found that waterbending moves like those his sister did worked better on the ice. Since he grew up with the Midnight Sun and Polar Night, he isn’t affected by them. (Also, his Avatar Spirit balances it out a lot.)

- Sokka thinking he’s just a firebender because the raids have been going on for a hundred years, but then Kanna has him do a test and the results are absolute. He is the Avatar.

- Sokka trying to imagine what an airbender would bend like. Sneaking out in harsh winds and practicing to bend with light steps and using the air to lift him higher. Building up his lungs and trying to be as though he’s in the mountains or soaring above treetops.

- He doesn’t get far, but he gets started.

- Using his lung power and inner flames to dive deep and long to catch fish and gather other supplies. More often after his father left.

- When Aang comes along, Sokka observes his every move, trying to master them in private late at night, with the excuse of keeping watch

- Aang is taken by Zuko because he’s an airbender and they’re supposed to be extinct

- Sokka eventually gets good enough with both the firebending he learned from his enemies and the airbending he learned from his friend to start waterbending. He’s sort of good because he’s been using the moves for years (amateurish but still used)

- The trips go the same, only they’re now just trying to find possible teachers for the Avatar and the Avatar themself so they can somehow teach the person all at once before the comet

- Aang connects to the Spirit World because he’s a monk and he knew the other former Avatar extremely well. The Spirits allow him passage.

- Aang causes Sokka some panic when he compares him to his ‘old friend, the previous Avatar’. Sokka eventually gets used to it.

- Zuko tracks the Gaang because they’re his only lead.

- Sokka acts solely as a nonbender when around anyone because he doesn’t want to be the Avatar. Yes, he knows the war is awful. Yes, he grew up with it. But that’s exactly why he doesn’t want to be the Avatar. He grew up with raids and the death and destruction that followed. His mother died protecting his sister when they were so young. All the men, the hunters and warriors, left the tribe and left Sokka in charge when he was a preteen. The war has brought nothing but sorrow, and Sokka doesn’t think he can overcome something so huge, so insurmountable. So he acts as much like a nonbender as he can.

- He isn’t sexist towards Suki because Kyoshi makes sure he has that stamped out early on. Instead, the moment the blindfold is off, he’s craning his neck back to see the statue of his past life. Suki thinks he’s a bit thick, and Katara doesn’t understand but covers for his preoccupation.

- Sokka learns to be a Kyoshi Warrior when Kysohi literally takes him over during the night and steals both warpaint and an outfit, and then teaches him to properly wear it all. Suki finds him firebending in full Kyoshi garb and using the fans. She assumes that he’s just the product of the Fire Nation’s cruelty.

- However, she does ask why he stole their gear and how he’s using the fans better than most newbies.

- “Kyoshi.” “What?” “Kyoshi... possessed me... and taught me how to be like you... and she’s proud of you.” “... is this normal for the Avatar’s friends?”

- Suki doesn’t tell the others under the conditions that she ‘take over for Kyoshi’ in training him and she can figure him out for herself through that.

- At the Fire Temple, the group gets separated, but Sokka is called by Roku to the Solstice room. He ends up managing to get inside with the help of Shyu, who understands he’s protecting himself and others by hiding.

- The others still get captured, and Shyu claims that Sokka made a controlled explosion to get in (the original idea until Shyu told him he knew the boy was the Avatar). Aang tells Katara that Roku sealing the chamber means Sokka is being spoken to. Zuko and Zhao are still there as well.

- When Roku takes over to tear down the temple, he disappears into an obscure hallway so Sokka can regain control without his friends knowing.

- Toph finds out Sokka is the Avatar when she ‘sees’ him practicing. She starts demanding he ‘keep her company’ when she does daily bending practice (they all do it so they can improve enough to eventually teach the Avatar and fight the Firelord). Whenever Toph ‘sees’ Sokka make a mistake while practicing earthbending, she uses the correct moves the next day and makes sure she’s in full view of Snoozles.

- Sometimes Toph drags Sokka over to watch Katara and Aang practice because she’s ‘bored’.

- Aang goes to see the Guru and when he’s heading back because he was given a vision of Katara in danger, he explains what he learned to Sokka. Sokka takes Aang’s place in their plan, so he is the one who helps Iroh rescue Zuko and Katara.

- When Azula starts to attack and it looks like they’ll lose, Sokka hides himself and is ignored because he’s presumed a nonbender. He goes through opening his chakras in what is definitely record time, but Sokka’s always been good at following plans/instructions (not orders, instructions, like how-to’s and stuff). He has to let go of his attachments to the Gaang, to his tribe, to Yue, Suki, and those he met on his journey. He does so by considering the fact that by letting go of his focus on them in particular, he can focus on stopping the larger problems, the problems that are likely to or are causing them harm.

- Sokka enters the Avatar State just as Aang enters, and the chaos causes Azula to think Aang is the Avatar. When she shoots him with lightning, Sokka drops from the Avatar State and gets his family out of there.

- Zuko still turns against them, but Agni’s voice is strong, and Sokka sees the same brotherly nature as he has within the boy.

- After taking the FN ship, Katara brings up a discussion of who the Avatar could be because they were there and helped the group, and Sokka makes up a vague story of how someone pulled him out of the battle (to explain his disappearance). Toph acts like she’s actually wondering, but pulls Sokka aside later and tells him she knows.

- Sokka can use metalbending, but doesn’t do it often if at all because he’s so used to hiding and he feels like it’s Toph’s thing. She stamps that out once she gets sick of it.

I might add more, but I’m just plotting this out right now, and I’m gonna try it out later when I have the time. If you want, suggest stuff. If you hate this idea, then please give me constructive criticism instead of pure wrath. I’m still going to include a character arc that hopefully does Sokka justice, but instead of focusing on his dismantling of his former sexist ways and learning that not being some big tough guy is okay (he can love shopping and fashion, he can love poetry, he can love dresses and makeup, he can love singing and have fun and pick up fine arts and paint), it’ll be more of him opening up and learning that he is strong enough, and if he isn’t, he has friends and family for a reason. He’ll learn how to be more confident in his abilities and how to let his true self shine more than his fake one.

Have at It.

#atla #sokka #avatar!sokka #au #avatar the last airbender #katara #toph #suki #yue #aang #iroh #zuko #azula #sokka is chief

25 notes · View notes